Harry Potter and the Third World War
by Jackryan411
Summary: Harry Potter is the head of powerful intelligence organization gathering information in the fight against Voldemort. With his best friend Ron Weasley, he must begin the monumental task of preparing a country for a war that could span all corners of the globe. Yet our story starts when he meets an intrepid young reporter assigned to cover his story... Features many OC/AU
1. When Harry Met Hermione

A/N: Hi everyone, I first started this story over twelve years ago when I was a tiny freshman in high school. My plan was to eventually publish it over on Portkey where I was an active member but due to eventual writer's block coupled with mild disillusionment following HBP I never actually managed to do so other than a brief stunted attempt 8 years ago. I stumbled upon this in my files a few weeks ago and it semi-sparked a return to fandom and I would love to finish this story. Here's a link to some of my old stuff if you want to get an idea for what kind of writer I was (hopefully I've improved sine then :)): profile/2334

This is a very, very AU fic with Harry having gone to Hogwarts and everything while Hermione never did. It combines a ton of spy elements gleaned from Tom Clancy, James Bond, etc. but still has tons of the good HP stuff we all enjoy. Hopefully you guys like it

Monday, December 21, 2004

Department of Central Intelligence Headquarters, London, England

"Goddammit, Mark, this is on need-to-know basis, all right? I don't want any more leaks," Harry Potter said angrily to his secretary, Mark Evans.

"Yes, sir, I'll tell them immediately."

Harry sighed as Mark left the room. Some idiot in the Intelligence Directorate had leaked information about the terrorist ring they were trying to bust up to a reporter. Again. Dammit.

"Mr. Potter?" a voice called, on the other side of the door.

"What is it, Nicole?"

His other secretary, the operations one, announced, "That reporter from the Prophet is waiting at the front entrance. And if I may say so, keep your cool, boss. We don't want an unfavorable article. Remember, even though the Minister likes us, if we get unfavorable reports, some other people in the Ministry will push to downsize us and that means jobs."

"Yes, I know, Nicole," Harry said tiredly, "send her in."

As he waited for the goddamn reporter to come in, Harry drummed his fingers angrily on his desk. His job was…well, he was basically a spy. He was the head of one hundred fifty or so field officers. They would go into the field and get information; the DI (Intelligence Directorate) usually analyzed it. Sometimes, he would be in the action himself, especially on the tough ones. Harry really loved his job. Especially when he caught the bad guys.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in."

Harry looked up from his desk, expecting to see some hotshot young kid who thought he knew everything there was to know in the world. He'd dealt with reporter types before. He was surprised to see…well, a girl in front of him. She couldn't have been older than twenty-three or twenty-four. Suddenly, he remembered that he was only twenty-four himself. Whoops.

"Hello," he said, smiling politely, masking his hatred for reporters.

"Hi," she said, sitting down in the chair across from him. She was wearing a white blouse and a navy blue knee-length skirt. She had little make-up on (surprise there, Harry thought, the few female reporters he'd come in contact with wore make-up like it was God's only gift to women), but this only brought out her cute pink cheeks.

"What's your name?"

"Hermione Granger," the reporter said, "as you know, the Daily Prophet wants to do a piece on the Department of Central Intelligence. Many people want to know what kind of stuff you do here. Your own director, Mr. McLeod, is out of town, so we were told to come see you."

Typical reporter, stating everything he already knew.

"Since…well, you're a famous figure, the head of the Prophet has told me to do a two-part piece. One focusing on what this Department does and why, and the other on you, your history here, and just general information about you."

Harry frowned. He didn't know that they were going to be doing a report on him.

"Sure," he decided, "but what do you really want? Do you want to expose us as a 'waste' of the Minister's budget? Or is the Department piece just a cover so you people can do a report on me?"

He noticed Hermione's look of surprise. She definitely hadn't expected him to pick up on that. He smiled inwardly. He wasn't an intelligence officer for nothing.

"Well, I'm going to be in and out here for the next couple weeks…I figured it would be best to start off by asking you what the primary goal of the Department of Central Intelligence is."

Harry closed his eyes before beginning to talk, remembering his practiced lines, "As you know, the Department of Central Intelligence was founded seven years ago by Minister Weasley for two purposes: the Intelligence Directorate was to analyze information about Death Eaters, Voldemort, and any other possible threats to wizard-kind. The Operations Directorate was to get and then act on that information." "Have you ever killed anyone?"

Harry opened his eyes, before coldly looking at her, "I am not at liberty to answer that question."

She was scribbling notes as fast as she could, "The question is, of course, why is this even there? Don't we have Aurors?"

"Aurors are good; they can be useful. But they are so fundamentally ingrained into the system that they cannot be of any use in this sort of thing. Some of the stuff we deal with in here is 'black,' meaning that the average person will never, ever know about it. Only a few people have access to 'black' stuff and some Aurors would feel…shall we say, conflicted?...about what to do. No, if Aurors get their own information and get someone, good for them. But Aurors will never join this Department."

"It seems like a waste of time," Hermione said, her eyebrows furrowing, "why don't you just work together?"

"Let's face it, Aurors leak like hell. They give information away to reporters like you guys deserve it (he noticed Hermione's involuntary flinch). In the Department of Central Intelligence, we can't have that kind of stuff. There is a reason for it, and although most of the time you won't even notice what we did, what we're doing keeps you alive."

Hermione was writing so fast, her hand was a blur.

"Didn't you learn shorthand?" Harry said, in his first moment of levity.

She smiled, "Never bothered. Longhand is the way notes should be taken. That way you'll never mess up."

Harry nodded, agreeing. She was right…he'd heard some stories of reporters misrepresenting the facts and then blaming their shorthand. His old buddy in the Department of Mysteries, Neville Longbottom, had once gotten screwed by a reporter that way.

"So…why don't we talk about you? Why did you join the Department?"

"I want to be able to stop Voldemort," he said, ignoring her shudder, "and this is the best place for that. Since I started working here after my graduation, seven years ago, we've caught thirty-six Death Eaters and developed several reliable sources of information everywhere."

"Even in You-Know-Who's own personal army?"

"Please, say the name. Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself," Harry said, feeling a bit like a teacher, "and I'm not answering that question."

Hermione looked disappointed, but Harry didn't really care. He couldn't tell a reporter anything important…that kind of stuff would get real people killed and Harry cared about those people a lot more than he did about some reporter hoping to get a raise.

"What was your schooling life like?" Hermione asked, changing the subject, realizing Harry was not going to give her anything juicy about the DCI (as the Department of Central Intelligence was referred to).

"It was fine," Harry said, with a smile, "I had a great time at Hogwarts. Made some good friends and everything."

"The Triwizard Tournament…" she started.

Harry shook his head, "I don't like talking about that. I shouldn't have been in it, but I was, because of some crazy loon. You may or may not know who he is. Whatever it was, I did not deserve that 1000 Galleons so I gave to my best friend's brothers for their joke shop."

Hermione looked up, interested. She had not known that.

"What joke shop?"

"Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes."

"You staked them?!" she said surprised. This was definite news. The Weasley twins operated the most popular joke shop in Diagon Alley. Most people knew that Harry was best friends with their brother, Ron, who also worked in the DCI, but she didn't think anyone knew about the original funding of the shop.

"Damn right," he said, with a wry grin, "so what? Tell me…doesn't your boyfriend like them?"

"I don't have a boyfriend," she said.

"Oh," said Harry, silently chastising himself for his joke.

"Anyway," she said, "what kind of job do you hold? I mean, what's your official job title?"

"DDO, Director of the Operations Directorate. Along with Sonny McLeod, who's the Director of the whole department, and Ron Weasley, head of the Intelligence Directorate, I help make most of the decisions here."

"Does the Operations Directorate mainly do the field work?"

Hmmm, she even knew some of the spy jargon. Harry was mildly impressed. For some reason, he liked this reporter more than the other ones he'd dealt with in his life. God knows she's better than Rita Skeeter, he thought. And prettier too.

"Yup."

"How much field work do you do?"

Harry smiled, "Enough."

Harry was surprised to see a smile creeping onto the face of Hermione Granger. Most reporters would have pressed him for more details, but she seemed to know that that would be an exercise in pointlessness.

"Listen," said Harry, "why don't we head down to the café we have in this Department? You can talk to the other guys and girls in there. It'll help your story…"

If Harry had been surprised at Hermione's professionalism, Hermione was astonished that Harry James Potter was being so civil to her. He had a real reputation for being nasty to reporters. It was that damn Skeeter woman's fault. Hermione had read about how she made up lies about him when he was fourteen and since then, he seemed to have developed a cold-blooded hatred towards reporters. Her only close acquaintance at the Prophet, Kim Holtzman, had told her that she had better not take everything he said too seriously, lest she get upset at his harsh diatribe.

"Okay."

Harry led the way down a couple floors to the in-house café. There were a few people sitting here and there around the place. Most were reading documents that Hermione would probably never be able to touch.

"Two lattes," Harry ordered, "thanks, Jim."

She noted with interest his friendliness to the café owner and operator. He certainly acted like he genuinely liked the guy, which totally went against the reports she had heard from her fellow reporters at the Prophet. They had told her that he was totally condescending to everyone unless he believed you were at the same level with him. So far, he had been almost-nice to her and friendly to this café guy.

Jim handed them the two lattes (Harry handed him a handsome tip) and they went and sat down in an empty booth.

"Hope you like lattes," he said, winking at her.

For the first time in her life, Hermione felt flustered. Here she was, with the most famous guy on the planet, and he was ordering her lattes and winking at her. She simply smiled weakly at him.

"Harry!" she heard a shout.

They both looked up and saw a tall, red-headed figure heading towards them. Harry stood up with a smile and shook hands with the guy, ending by clapping him on the back.

"Who's the babe?" he asked, sliding into the seat next to Harry.

Hermione blushed, as Harry said, "Hermione Granger; she's a reporter for the Prophet. Hermione, this is Ron Weasley, DDI, or Director of the Intelligence Directorate. He's also my best friend…or at least that's what he says." Harry finished that remark with a sarcastic grin.

"Why's she down here?" Ron asked, confusedly.

"She's doing a story on us so I offered to show her the café, so she could meet some people…like you, for example."

Hermione smiled warmly, "Yes, he's been very nice to me."

Ron spat out part of the latte he was drinking (stolen from Harry).

"Harry, nice to a reporter?" he asked, wiping his mouth off.

Harry smirked, "She's not that bad. At least not like Skeeter…"

Ron shuddered, "Don't remind me. So whaddaya want to know?"

Hermione stirred her latte, thinking. Her main assignment was to cover Harry, although that was being supported by the story on the DCI. Well…she did need more information for the latter story.

"What do you think of the DCI?"

"I think it's a great idea," Ron said, "we've been really successful here, and I'd wager that in a couple years, we'll get Voldemort himself."

"So you say his name too?"

"I never used to," Ron explained, "but after messing around with Harry for the past thirteen years, I've finally gotten used to it."

"Don't you think this is a waste with Aurors also trying to do the same job?"

"I'm sure Harry already gave you the speech," Ron said, Hermione's nod confirming that, "but the short version is that Aurors aren't the most trustworthy beings, at least in my opinion."

Hermione continued writing extremely fast. This was really juicy stuff. The DCI didn't like the Aurors…she couldn't wait to go over to the Ministry of Magic building and interview some of the Aurors, especially Zacharias Smith, who was a noted advocate for breaking up the DCI.

Harry smirked inwardly. She probably thought this was juicy stuff. Everybody inside the establishment already knew these facts and either didn't care or politely ignored them. It would only be news to her readers…well, that would be enough to sell her paper, and that's all she probably cared about, and rightly so.

"Anyway, I've got work to do," Ron said, standing up, "thanks for the latte, Harry. Oh yeah, after you're done with her, come up to my office. I've got some information for you."

Harry nodded as his best friend walked off, "So what else do you want to know?"

"I think this is enough for today, actually," she said, smiling at him, "I'll be in and out for the next couple of weeks like I said earlier. I guess I'll see you later."

"Know the way out?"

"Yes."

"Okay, see you later," Harry said, watching her retreating back.

"Okay, what is it, Ron?" Harry said, walking into Ron's office ten minutes later.

He sighed, "Take a look at this."

He placed a few satellite images on his desk. Harry sat down and began to look over them.

"Damn," he groaned, "so those Iranian wizards really have started training?"

"Yep," Ron said grimly, "it looks like our reports were right. Malfoy and the Lestranges are training those guys in those boot camps. These satellites are heat-sensored and it's definitely picking up some bodies."

"Who's satellites are they?"

"America's."

Harry nodded, looking at the images, showing a dusty, windy desert place with sand-colored tents scattered around the picture. The satellites that the U.S. used were top-quality. Of course, the U.S. Muggle government didn't know that they took copies of those images from them every day. They had one guy…what was his name…oh yeah, Mike Morrow…who worked in the government, and made copies of the readouts every day to send back to his mother's homeland. They also had several guys like that in other countries. It was very good for identifying possible outside threats.

"I don't like this."

"Me neither," Ron said, "do you think we should send a couple guys undercover out to that country to see what they can find out?"

"Do it. Send Ryan and Murray."

Ron nodded, "Agreed. Should we ask Sonny first?"

Harry shook his head, "He won't mind. We can just tell him when he gets back from Moscow."

And that was something Harry was looking forward to hearing about. Sonny was having discussions with the Russian Ministry of Magic. They were trying to open up some lines of communication. Sonny, Harry, and Ron's dad, the Minister of Magic, all wanted desperately to have Russia on their side. They all felt that the war with Voldemort was getting global, and the Iranian training was proof of that. The Russian wizards, especially the ones in their Magical Law Enforcement Department, were tough, smart, and really good. They could probably count on America (nothing was really confirmed) and France and Germany to back them when the time came. Voldemort was sure to have Asia and most importantly, the Middle East behind him. The Iranians were probably the canniest wizards Harry knew. He remembered a duel he had had with an Iranian operative two years ago. It had been messy…

"Okay, Ron…I'm heading off-duty."

"All right, maybe I'll come over to your house tonight or something," he said.

"Sure," Harry said, "I might or might not be there. I think I'm gonna go out tonight."

"Too bad you don't have a girlfriend," Ron said, sticking out his tongue at Harry.

"Better than being married," he shot back.

Ron shrugged, but grinned at Harry. Harry smiled back and headed out of the office. He grabbed his coat off the rack in the front of the building.

"See ya, Nicole and Mark!" he called back.

"Bye, boss!" they chorused.

Harry laughed as he kept on going. Those two were a pair, all right. They both excelled at their respective duties…and there were rumors of them dating, which Harry did nothing but encourage. They both were young and attractive and deserved another good person.

Pulling his coat on, Harry crossed the street and headed towards his favorite pub.


	2. An Unexpected Meeting

Hi everyone, thanks for the feedback so far and the follows. So basically since I have so much of this pre-written I'm gonna base the update schedule on reviews because I'm just that attention-seeking. :P So the more reviews, the quicker updates will come out haha. Thanks again for the support. I noticed the link messed up on my first chapter so check my profile for links to my other work if you're so inclined.

 **Chapter Two-An Unexpected Meeting**

 _Finnigan's, London, England_

Harry walked into Finnigan's, which just so happened to be owned by one of his former schoolmates, Seamus Finnigan. He ordered a beer and sat down at an empty table, looking around the room. His eyes didn't register any threats. He relaxed. Loud music was playing and Harry could barely hear himself think.

Of course, that was one of the reasons he came here. To get away from it all. Not think about his government's problems. Not worry about Voldemort. A waitress came up to him and he ordered some fish and chips to go with his Guinness.

His eyes once again roamed the establishment. He felt bored. None of the regulars seemed to be here today. Suddenly, he saw Hermione, sitting in one of the corner booths, writing away on a piece of parchment.

"Hello," he said, after walking over to her.

"Oh, hi! I didn't expect to see you here! Do you want to sit down?" said Hermione, hastily pushing away some parchments to make room for him.

"Sure," he said, sitting down across from her.

"So, what are you doing?" he asked.

"Just organizing everything I learned today into categories of importance…so, what are you doing here?"

He shrugged, "Just getting away from it all."

She nodded interestedly. The waitress, who had immediately noticed his change in seating arrangements, brought the fish and chips over to the table and Harry gave her a tip on the spot.

"You give very large tips," Hermione noted, sipping her own soft drink.

He shrugged, "It's the least I can do. They don't make much in that kind of job, so I like to give them money."

Hermione watched him eat, utterly fascinated. This man was so complex…so utterly contradictory. This was the same man who had once turned a guy named Draco Malfoy into a ferret in front of Diagon Alley because Malfoy had made some sneering remark. He was a man who hated all reporters, yet was being nice and courteous to her. This was going to be an amazing story.

"Where'd you go to school?" Harry asked.

"Beauxbatons. I moved to France when I was nine and moved back here after I graduated. France is okay, but I like England better."

"Do you like being a reporter?"

"It's fun and gives me a good income," Hermione said, before continuing on, "but what I'd really like to be is an artist."

"An artist?" Harry said, surprised.

She blushed, "Do you think it sounds stupid? I've never told anyone, besides my parents, that before."

"It sounds fine," Harry said, shrugging. "If you're good, you could become really rich."

"Yeah, I know, but I'm not good at all."

"Oh, come off it," Harry said. "I bet you're loads better than me."

She laughed and smiled. Harry grinned back. For some reason, he was beginning to feel drawn to her; drawn to this woman he'd only met a few hours back. Frankly, it was scaring him.

"Got any friends around here?"

"I've got some acquaintances at the office," she replied, "not many, though. I've never really had a lot of 'real' friends."

Harry shrugged, "Neither have I. Ron, Sonny, and Neville Longbottom. I've pretty much got three really good friends and a few other acquaintances, but that's about it."

"I always wondered what it would be like to have a real best friend," she said wistfully.

"It's great," Harry said, "it's such a relief when you can tell other people what's going on in your life. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I do."

Harry decided to change the subject, "So, how come you don't have a boyfriend?"

"How come you don't have a girlfriend?" she shot back, "You're only the most eligible bachelor in the wizarding world according to _Witch Weekly_."

Harry laughed, "I don't know…I guess I'm just waiting for that perfect woman to come along and knock me off my feet."

Hermione couldn't help but notice the way his eyes seemed to burn into hers at that moment. He had the most gorgeous eyes…emerald and deep. She could feel herself slowly sinking into the depths of those endless pools. No wonder he had won that award from _Witch Weekly_.

Harry, meanwhile, was noticing how pretty Hermione was. It wasn't in that fake, artificial way a few of his officers loved to get at the nightclubs and whorehouses. She was just naturally pretty. Her hair was a little bushy and her clothes weren't tight, but she still seemed attractive. _Whoa, Potter, slow down. She's a reporter and in a couple weeks, you won't see her again for the rest of your life. Forget it._

Suddenly, his pocket began to glow with heat.

"Dammit," he said, "listen, Hermione, I'd love to keep chatting, but I got to go. Ron's signaled me. Something important back at the Department. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow."

"Count on it," she replied, watching silently as he walked away, her own jumbled thoughts flying around in her head.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Harry walked into Ron's office, "What's going on?"

Ron sighed, "Got a report from Finch-Fletchley in Edinburgh. Some terrorists just blew up half of the shopping alley up there. Sixty-six dead, twenty-four injured."

Harry sat down, his mind processing the information. Wizarding terrorists were a new problem for his country. In the past, it seemed like only Death Eaters and Voldemort would be the things that he had to fight against. Over the past five or six years, that had been completely wrong. A bunch of Arabic wizards had formed some scattered terrorist organizations, learning from their Muggle counterparts. It was pure hell for Harry and the other workers of the DCI. It meant more confusing stuff to go along with the usual Voldemort killings.

"Any Aurors dispatched on the scene?"

Ron checked the parchment, "Yeah, two from the local office. Finch-Fletchley says they're doing a decent job, but it doesn't really matter. Those dudes are dead…and you know that the media's gonna blame us."

"That's what we get for being an intelligence department," Harry said, sighing.

"If only damned media knew how many terrorist acts we _prevent_ each year."

"Ain't that the truth," Harry said. They didn't tell anyone about stopping terrorist acts because they didn't want to tip off their methods and surveillance capabilities to the other terrorist organizations or to Voldemort himself.

"That reporter friend of yours is gonna be asking some questions about this tomorrow," Ron said, filing the parchment away in one of his cabinets.

"I know how to deal with it."

"You lie like a pro, Harry," Ron said.

It was almost a compliment.

 **Tuesday, December 22, 2004**

 _Cafe Abdullah, Tehran, Iran_

The man in the hooded cloak sat in a café, indulging himself in a doughnut and coffee. A terrible smile echoed across his face. Wouldn't this be a sight to that damn fool Potter? Lord Voldemort enjoying a strawberry-frosted doughnut and black coffee in a café.

Of course he wasn't sitting here just to enjoy himself. At least he didn't have to worry about someone exposing him. Most Iranians supported him and his following, and even if one alerted England that he had been here, what good would that do them? By the time they arrived, he'd be long gone.

He was waiting for his contact in the United Islamic Wizards terrorist organization to show up. Voldemort was having preliminary talks with the organization. In the upcoming global war, he definitely wanted the Arabs and their terrorists on his side.

Not that he liked them or anything, but they _were_ very effective. One of his intelligence sources in Moscow told him that the head of England's DCI, Sonny McLeod, was having high-level talks with the Minister of Magic there. Voldemort knew that Russia would probably not join his own organization, so he had made no attempt to ask them to help him. A murder of ten Russian babies of high-level officers at their Ministry nineteen years ago had erased that possibility. Voldemort raged at himself in hindsight. That had been such a stupid thing to do…he shook his head to clear his thoughts. Now was not the time to look back. He had to look forward. He was so close to accomplishing his goal.

The Persian stepped into the booth, ordering a soft drink. Voldemort remembered that according to their religion, they were not supposed to drink alcohol. He smiled to himself. What a stupid rule.

"Hello, Mohammed," he said.

"Good afternoon, Lord Voldemort," Mohammed said. Voldemort noted with some displeasure that he didn't say 'my lord.' Then again, this man didn't really work for him, did he?

"What is your boss's response to my request for a high-level meeting?"

"He agrees," Mohammed said, "it will be conducted in our headquarters. As you know, some of your Death Eaters have already started helping some of our wizards in training. My boss is very glad of this and is open to any offers you will make."

Voldemort smiled. It was so easy.

"Tell me, were you behind the attack on Edinburgh yesterday?"

Mohammed smiled, "Yes, my friend. Some of our friends journeyed into Paradise yesterday. It was a successful mission. Allah will receive them well."

Voldemort nodded, not really caring. He didn't give one damn about religion. These fools didn't really follow Islam after all. They called themselves Muslims, but if they followed their _own_ holy book, they would realize that they were not supposed to kill innocent life. Oh well. So much the better for him.

"I'm sure He will," Voldemort said, pretending to agree with his contact, "and, when will this meeting between take place?"

"Next week. You know where our headquarters are, don't you?"

"Yes." Actually he didn't, but he knew his intelligence chief could find it out for him. Rookwood was very good at that kind of stuff.

"Salaam aleikum," he said and left.

Voldemort found it a bit odd that the messenger had left with the message, "Peace be unto you." And in Arabic too. This Iranian guy was supposed to speak Farsi. Oh well, these terrorists were an odd bunch. It didn't matter that they were wishing peace onto someone who had terminated overt three hundred wizards' lives. Shaking himself off the thought, he paid his bill and Apparated back to his headquarters.

 _Ministry of Magic, Moscow, Russia_

James "Sonny" McLeod stretched tiredly as he stood up from the table. It was time for the lunch break. He had been in continuous negotiations with Andrey Nikolayevich Narmonov, Russia's Minister of Magic, for nearly five hours now.

"Care to join me for lunch?" Narmonov asked.

Sonny nodded. Narmonov would have to know the best places to eat around here. For the past three days, Sonny had tried the food around here and everything he had eaten so far was bad.

Narmonov and his security detail led him to a restaurant across the street. Sonny ordered a vodka and _borscht_ , a Russian beet soup. Narmonov had ordered some potato dish or the other, and of course, the customary vodka.

"How's the family?" Narmonov asked.

Sonny smiled. He and Narmonov had been pretty good friends going back to the time six years ago when Narmonov had his wand pointed at Sonny's face and was threatening to kill him. He silently laughed. The irony always amused him.

"My family's fine…Caroline enjoys working at St. Mungo's and Eddie likes playing Quidditch, which really keeps him busy."

"Quidditch, a fine sport," Narmonov said in approval, "how old is he again?"

"Eight years old."

Narmonov nodded, and their waiter returned with their drinks and their food. As trivial as some of the information they were exchanging was, it was important to their diplomatic discussions. Sonny knew that it gave both sides a sense of familiarity and friendliness, which was only enhanced by the comradeship Narmonov and Sonny already shared.

"So, how are the wizards in Russia doing?"

"We are having surprisingly little trouble," Narmonov said, "there is little unrest. There is, however, widespread poverty among wizards, and it is proving increasingly difficult for my people to get food."

There it was. An opening. Narmonov had willingly showed it. Sonny smiled into his vodka.

"Perhaps England could assist you in this problem," Sonny allowed, knowing that he would having to talk to Minister Weasley about this before he could make any promises. But he was confident that Arthur would have no problem authorizing it… _if_ Russia would play ball and join them in their fight against Voldemort.

"Perhaps," Narmonov replied.

Sonny grinned to himself through the rest of the meal, knowing that they finally had their position. Russia was going to join them.

 _Hotel Paradise, Tehran, Iran_

"Hell of a place to be in," Benjamin Murray observed to his DCI counterpart and friend, Katie Ryan.

Katie nodded grimly, "Yeah. First time I've been to an Islamic nation."

"Well, I suppose Harry knows what he's doing," Ben said.

"Yeah."

Ben Murray was twenty-seven years old, and although he was older than Harry Potter, he had supreme respect for the twenty-four year old. The kid had showed his worth in several battles. Murray and Ryan were one of the best pairs of field officers in the Operations Directorate and Harry knew it. They were among the best-paid and always got the difficult assignments (the "best pair" was on probation currently-though Ben and Katie, and even Harry, would argue that they were better). Murray had graduated from Hogwarts, first in his class, and loved working for the DCI. Certainly, he and Katie had brought in their share of terrorists and Death Eaters.

Katie was two years younger than him, but also a good field officer. She was the one who had bagged Antonin Dolohov four years ago when Ben had been incapacitated by one of Dolohov's buddies. She was a pretty brunette and sometimes Ben fantasized about dating her. Of course, he had never told her that because it would ruin their working relationship.

"Let's go to the market first…that's a good place to see what the locals think," Katie said.

Ben agreed. Their covers were as Canadian journalists. Canada was friendly with Iran, so it was likely they would not be hassled too much. They walked into the market, and Ben headed towards a goldsmith.

"Hello," Ben said, using his best Canadian accent, even though he was speaking Farsi. "I am John Paige, a Canadian reporter, and this is my photographer, Nicole Larson."

The goldsmith looked at them suspiciously, "What do you want? I have done nothing illegal!"

"We know that," Katie told him with a smile, "my partner and I are doing a report on Iran and its wizards for our newspaper back home in Ottawa. We just wanted to ask you a few questions."

The goldsmith still didn't look happy, but he acquiesced.

"What do you think of your Ministry of Magic?" Ben asked.

"My name will not be used, correct?" the goldsmith asked and was rewarded with a nod, "I think that the Ministry is one big bureaucracy and they do little serve the people. I hate it."

"What about the terrorist organizations operating in your country?"

The goldsmith made a face, "Those people are not Faithful to the word of the Prophet. They do not deserve to call themselves Muslims. The Holy Koran says that one shall not take innocent lives. Their acts are hateful to man and to God."

They asked him a few more vanilla questions before heading off to question some more people. The results would be tallied and sent back to the DCI headquarters. It was important to get a feel for what the people on the street felt about Iran's Ministry and about the terrorist organizations. That way you could look at the possibilities of rebellions, helped along by England of course.

At the end of the day, their general results were that most of the people disliked Iran's Ministry; however, many seemed to like the terrorist organizations, even though the goldsmith had not. This was a bit disturbing, but not unexpected. Ben immediately sent the reports (encrypted in a form that a few members of the DO knew how to decipher) back to England, via his speed owl, Dante.

"Care to join me for dinner?" Ben asked.

"I'd love to," Katie replied.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Harry had been going over the initial intelligence reports from the Edinburgh attack when Hermione walked in. Hiding his displeasure at being interrupted, Harry looked up at her with a smile.

"Listen, can you not bother me for the next couple hours? I have important work to do that you're not cleared for. You can go and visit other places, but you can't be in here."

"Will I be able to ask you questions about the Edinburgh attack then?" she asked, hope evident in her voice.

"Yes," he said in a tired voice.

That was good enough for her. She left the room quietly. Harry noted with some interest that she had straightened her hair slightly and had put a nice pink ribbon in it. She looked even better.

Shaking his head, he turned back to his report. He needed to talk to Finch-Fletchley. He had been on the scene. It was time to use one of the one good things that Muggles had invented.

Telephones.

He walked into his secretaries' office.

"Hey Nicole, where's Mark?"

"He's sick today," she said sadly. She really liked Mark.

"Can I use the telephone?"

"Sure."

The wizard telephones in this office and others around the building had been developed by an engineer specially commissioned by the DCI. They didn't short out like normal Muggle stuff or anything when exposed to a magical environment…they were magic as could be. Of course, this new technology had not reached any homes-most citizens didn't even know the existed-and it was too damned unlucky that they couldn't afford to have given one to Ben and Katie in Iran. Finch-Fletchley had the only portable one, because they had been suspecting an attack on Edinburgh for a couple weeks, although they hadn't known any of the details. Harry hated when that happened.

"Hey Justin," Harry said.

"Hey boss," Justin Finch-Fletchley said, grinning slightly. Harry hated when people called him that.

"Very funny, Finch-Fletchley; got any new information about the terrorists?"

"The Aurors confirmed it," Finch-Fletchley said, "we're pretty sure they were those blasted Iranians. Funny, even Aurors can be useful sometimes."

"Right," Harry said. "Any IDs?"

"Well, it was kind of hard to sort through the rubble and the bodies, but according to my source among the Aurors, they got enough for DNA testing. He gave them to me and I already sent them to you. You'll probably get them in a couple hours. We'll probably get a couple matches with known terrorists."

"Yeah. Damned shame we couldn't stop it."

"Yup," Finch-Fletchley said, "I bet the media's lighting into us down there. I wish they'd realize that we _can't_ do everything. I mean, we knew they were thinking about doing something in Edinburgh, but we couldn't stop them, could we?"

"They'll never learn. The media is a vicious dog. But occasionally we'll have to throw it a bone," Harry said.

"Damn right. I'll call your secretary if I get more information."

"All right, thanks, Justin."

"Have a good one, Boss."

Harry hung up. Damn. Those Iranians were getting on his nerves. And one of his sources in the United Islamic Wizards told him that there were rumors about an agreement with Voldemort coming into place soon. That would be a pleasant thought for the rest of the world.

Well, he'd better get ready to start lying to that Hermione girl.

"Hey Nicole," he said, "get someone to go tell the reporter she can come back into my office."

"Okay, Harry," she said, and then winked at him. "She is pretty, you know."

"Oh, shut up," Harry said, but smiling nonetheless, "she's a reporter and you know they're just thirsty bloodhounds."

"Too right you are," Nicole said, before standing up to find someone who would in turn, go find Hermione.

Harry went back to his office to wait for Hermione.

 _Ministry of Magic, London, England_

"Arthur?"

Arthur Weasley looked up and saw that his primary advisor and chief of staff, Tom van Damm, had walked into his office.

"Yes, Tom?"

Tom grimaced, "The numbers have been confirmed. Sixty-six dead and twenty-four injured. Ron's going to be in later to brief you on what the DCI has so far. Smith says that the Aurors have found out that it was a group of Iranian terrorists."

Arthur sighed. When he had taken this job seven years ago, he hadn't expected to be ravaged by anything other than You-Know-Who. But shortly after he had taken the job, terrorists had popped up. Every single wizard knew about the attack on the World Trade Center in the Muggle world. Arthur lived in fear that something like that would happen to wizards in his country. He had formed the DCI to combat Death Eaters and You-Know-Who, but now it was getting sidetracked by these damned terrorists.

"Very well. Political ramifications?"

Tom van Damm was a genius at the political game. He had gotten Arthur elected, even though before his campaign very few people even knew who he was. His rival in the election, Cornelius Fudge, the incumbent Minister, had often played upon the fact that Arthur's highest previous job was as the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, not exactly the usual stepping-stone to the Ministership. But with van Damm's genius campaign, Arthur had won by seven precent. It was one of the greatest upsets in Ministry election history.

"Negligible," Tom said, "there'll be a few protesters calling for the removal of the DCI, but nothing else much. People think you're doing a good job, Arthur. As for the rest of the Ministry, you'll get some complaints from the usual people, but nothing else. Oh yeah, Sonny sent an owl from Russia. It sounds like Narmonov wants a food for help kind of deal when the war starts."

"Tell him to go ahead and do it. Food isn't a big deal to us. We've got a surplus."

"Very well, that's all."

"Okay, good. Tell Ron that I want him in here soon. And maybe he can bring Harry too."

"Yes, sir."

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

"Okay, Hermione, it's simple. We just didn't have the information. Intelligence is all about information and we just couldn't get it," Harry said, neglecting to mention the fact that they had known _something_ was going to happen in Edinburgh, they just hadn't known what. They didn't need to let her know that.

"Why not? I guess the question is: why should the Ministry spend money on keeping you around if you can't even stop terrorist acts?"

Harry leaned back in his chair, giving an audible sigh. Damn these reporters.

"Dammit, it's not that simple! Even if we can get information, we have to be able to _stop_ them. That takes manpower and money, two things we don't have a great supply of around here. Look, Hermione, there's a bunch of things we do that you don't read about in the _Daily Prophet_ , but it doesn't mean we're just sitting here on our rears doing nothing!" Harry shouted, trying to keep his temper under control.

Hermione nodded, "I'm sorry, don't get so upset. I have to ask these questions. I'm a reporter."

Harry gave her a grim smile, "I know."

"Why don't we talk about something else?" she suggested.

"Go ahead," said Harry; silently wishing that he didn't have to deal with this reporter right now.

"I hate that some of these are personal questions, but my boss told me I had to ask you these questions…er, how many girlfriends have you had?"

"Two. Cho Chang for a few months in my fifth year at Hogwarts and Sandra Ross for two years after I got out of school."

"If you don't mind me asking, why'd you break up with Sandra? That seems like the more serious relationship."

He smirked, "She didn't like the hours I was working at the DCI. I barely ever got to see her, so she decided she wanted to break up with me. We still see each other every now and then."

Hermione wrote it down. Personally, she wouldn't care if Harry worked long hours. She certainly wouldn't mind dating him. _Hermione!_ a voice shouted in her head, _Don't think about things like that. You know how boys are. They just want to use you, get a couple shags out of you, and then they'll dump you. And this guy's no different, even if he is the famous Harry Potter_! Shaking her head, she returned to her questions.

"If there's one thing you regret in life, what is it?"

"I guess I regret inadvertently causing the deaths of Cedric Diggory and my godfather, Sirius Black. I'm sure you know the story behind both of those."

"Yes," she replied quietly.

"So, let me ask _you_ a question," Harry said smiling, "if you really want to be an artist, why are you a reporter?"

She blushed before answering, "I guess it's my parents. They think pursuing an art career is stupid. They told me to get a real job and I guess this is it."

"You said it's fun and gives you a good income."

"It does," she said, before shrugging, "it's just not what I really want to do. What about you, is there something you'd rather be doing than catching bad guys?"

Harry laughed, "Nope. Nothing else. It's what I was born to do."

Hermione eagerly scribbled that down. That would be a great quote for the lead-in of the article about him. She had to get some other opinions too for the article on the DCI. Zacharias Smith would probably give an interesting view of what he thought about Harry and the DCI. Hmmm…she could probably go and talk to him tomorrow. She made a mental note to remind herself to do that.

"What was Beauxbatons like?"

"It was fun," Hermione said, "a bit strict, but the school was simply amazing. The decorations and the feeling of…royalty, I guess…was great. I really learned a lot there and graduated top of my class."

"What's someone who graduated top of their class doing in a profession like reporting?" Harry asked, winking to let her know that he was teasing her.

She laughed, "You know…I've never met anyone like you. In any of my interviews. You're so complex…yet simple. Nice…but mysterious. A dark side…yet a funny side, too."

Harry shrugged and winked, "I try."

Hermione looked at her wristwatch, "Well, I've got to go. I've got a meeting with a couple of my coworkers at the _Prophet._ I guess I'll see you later."

"All right. Good-bye, Hermione."

Almost as soon as Hermione had left, her pink ribbon trailing nicely behind her hair, Ron entered.

"Entertaining?" he joked.

"Haha," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "What are you here for?"

"Got an owl from Ben and Katie."

"Hope they're not snogging already," Harry said.

"Oh please, they're not even dating," Ron said, before amending that, "yet, anyway. Read it."

Harry skimmed through the later. The basic information was that most of the Iranians didn't like their Ministry, but supported the terrorists.

"Damn," Harry observed.

"Yeah," Ron said, agreeing, "no chance of getting a rebellion or anything. The terrorists are well-connected. People like them. They think they're doing 'God's own work.' And now that there's a possible connection with Voldemort…"

Harry shook his head, "Nothing we can do about it…let's just hope Sonny can get the Russkies on our side."

"Tell me about it. Man, this global war's gonna be something, isn't it?"

"Especially since ninety percent of the world doesn't even think that something like that's going to happen. They're going to be in for a _big_ surprise."

"Damn right."


	3. Wandfight

Once again, review, review, review! It's the biggest motivator :) Thanks guys

 **Chapter Three-Wandfight**

 **Wednesday, December 23, 2004**

 _Hotel Paradise, Tehran, Iran_

Ben rolled over on his bed. It was seven o'clock in the morning. That meant it was probably what, three in London? He had never been very good with time zones. He headed to the adjacent bathroom to wash and shave.

Dinner last night had been pleasant. He had made Katie laugh with a few jokes and they had walked on the streets for a couple hours together, talking occasionally, but they had spent the rest of the time just walking in companionable silence.

After brushing his teeth, Ben went to the phone and ordered some room service. He wanted scrambled eggs to eat. Deciding that he was too bored to sit and wait for the food, he walked over to Katie's room which was next door and knocked.

"Come in," she said.

He walked in and noticed she was still in her nightgown, reading a newspaper. Ben took a sharp intake of breath that occurred when he saw the way the nightgown clung to her body…showing off her curves…

"Hey Katie, what's new in the world today?" he asked, as casually as he could manage it.

"Nothing much," she replied, "there's a bit of a hullabaloo over the Edinburgh incident and reportedly some calls for the removal of the DCI, but nothing else. No suicide wizard bombers today."

"Surprise, surprise," he said, running a hand through his hair, "anyway, I'll let you get dressed. I have to go back to my room and get my breakfast."

"All right. I'll come into your room when I'm dressed."

Ben nodded and headed back into his room, just in time to get the scrambled eggs from the waiter. It was pretty good. Shame they didn't serve bacon. Well, it _was_ a predominantly Muslim country. This wizard hotel was pretty good, but not as good as the Bellagio in Las Vegas. After scanning through the Quidditch scores, he went and made himself some coffee.

Katie walked in, "I got the owl back from Ron. He says to keep doing what we're doing and keep an eye out for any known possible terrorist suspects."

"Exciting," Ben said sarcastically, "you know, this is such an easy job that they should have let one of the rookies do it."

"Come on, this is one of the most dangerous places in the world for foreigners. You can't send a rookie in here," Katie admonished him.

"Well, let's hit the street."

 _McLeod Home, Greenwich, England_

"Caroline? I'm home!" Sonny called to his wife nearly six hours later, making it about nine o'clock, London time.

His wife rushed into the room and leaped into his arms.

"Hey Caroline, how was life without me?" he said, grinning as he set his wife down.

"Dull," she said, her eyes sparkling.

Sonny laughed, "Where's Eddie?"

"He's staying over at Mike's."

"So it's just you and me?"

Caroline smiled a seductive smile, "You got that right."

"Listen, can you get me a water first?" Sonny asked, hoping he wasn't upsetting his wife. He couldn't help that he was thirsty.

"Of course, sweetheart."

Sonny walked into the living room. The pictures of Eddie in his local team's Quidditch jersey and one of him meeting the greatest English Quidditch player of the day, Andrew Raycroft, were up on the mantelpiece, alongside a wedding day photo of Sonny and his wife. He squinted as he looked at the picture. His hair had been so much nicer back then. Caroline still looked as pretty as she did on her wedding day.

She walked back into the room, dressed only in a loose nightgown, with his water.

"What did I ever do to deserve you?" Sonny asked, gratefully taking the water.

"Nothing," Caroline replied, smirking, "I just happened to fall in love with you."

"Lucky me."

In the course of the next two hours, Sonny realized how truly lucky he really was.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

"Sonny's back home," Harry announced, walking into Ron's office.

"Really? Why isn't he in here?"

"He's been gone a week, Ron," Harry said, "give the man a break. He's probably fucking his wife."

Ron laughed, "Probably. That briefing with Dad wasn't fun."

"Nope, but then again, when sixty-six English wizards are dead, intelligence officers in that country aren't usually treated nicely," Harry observed.

Ron nodded, "So how's that reporter doing? Still tailing you everywhere?"

Harry sighed, "Yeah. But she'll be gone in a couple weeks. She better write up a good report."

"You can say that again."

"Any mail from Katie or Ben?" Harry asked.

"Nope. We'll probably get some around two or three this afternoon. That'll be what-six or seven for them? Damn, I hate time zones. I don't understand them," Ron said.

"I don't think anybody except for the Greenwich Mean Time guys understand it. Anyway, Sonny should be in around lunch time, before heading over to talk to your Dad."

"Bet that reporter harasses him too," Ron said, "but anyway, I've got to return to my intelligence reports."

"Yeah, I've got to go baby-sit the reporter again. Fun, fun," Harry griped.

"Look at it this way," Ron advised, snickering, "at least she likes you…maybe enough to fuck you."

Harry threw one of the pens lying on the desk at Ron, which he easily dodged before heading out of the room, rolling his eyes at Ron's laughs.

 _Voldemort's Headquarters, undisclosed, England (?)_

"Where's the headquarters for UIW?" Voldemort asked.

Rookwood shook his head, "Not very many people know. I'll put out a message to SOLDIER, but it'll be a while before we find out."

"Before next week, right?"

"Yes, my Lord," Rookwood said, with total obedience.

Voldemort waved Rookwood out of the room. SOLDIER was one of their high-level sources in the terrorist group. He had given them a lot of good information and was the one who had set them up with Mohammed.

Voldemort allowed his thoughts to wander; he didn't have a meeting scheduled with anyone else today. It would be some time before he made another attack. He hadn't made a personal one himself in nearly six months although his Death Eaters had been keeping busy.

"My Lord?"

Voldemort looked down at the ground, from his high throne, irritated at having his train of thoughts interrupted. He sighed inwardly. It was Wormtail.

"Yes, what is it, Wormtail?"

"Lavender is here, My Lord."

Oh yes, he had forgotten. He had an "appointment" with Lavender today. He smiled before getting off his chair. He was in for a few vigorous hours.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Harry drummed his fingers absently as he waited for Sonny to check in. Hermione was silently writing some notes in the chair across from him. It was nearly lunch time and he wanted to know how the Russia talks had gone.

"Er…this is kind of a dumb question, but can I ask it anyway before the Director comes?" Hermione asked.

"Sure, go ahead."

"What's your favorite food?"

Harry looked puzzled, "I guess that would be veal parmigiana. My favorite place to get it is at one of the local Muggle restaurants."

The door suddenly swung open and Sonny McLeod strolled in, looking rather pleased with himself.

"Hey Sonny, how was Russia?"

"Freezing," Sonny replied, "who's the chick?"

"Hello, my name is Hermione Granger," Hermione said, standing up and shaking his hand, "I'm a reporter for the _Prophet_ and I'm doing a special report on the DCI and on Harry here."

"Tough being famous," Sonny announced, "anyway, I told Nicole to go get Ron so he'll be in here shortly."

"Er, Hermione," said Harry, "could you leave? Because we're gonna be discussing things that you can't really hear."

"Sure, Harry," she said, smiling sweetly at him.

"I think she likes you," Sonny said, when she had left.

Harry rolled his eyes, "That's what everybody's saying."

"Do you like her?"

Harry thought about it. If he was honest with himself, he knew that he thought that she seemed like a nice person. And she was really pretty.

"She's nice and pretty," said Harry shrugging, "so what?"

"Ask her out. See if anything comes of it," Sonny advised.

Before Harry could reply, Ron walked in, "Hey Sonny, how was the wife this morning?"

"Best fuck we've had in a long time," Sonny grinned.

They sat down opposite Harry.

"So did we get a deal?"

"Yeah. They want food in exchange, but your Dad had no problem with that. I'm gonna head over there after lunch to brief him on the rest of the talks, but it really was pretty straight-forward. Narmonov and I have been buddies since the day he had a wand pointed at my head."

"I'll bet."

"Got you guys a couple gifts from Mother Russia," Sonny said, handing Harry a bag and Ron two, "one's for Lavender, Ron."

"Thanks, buddy."

"No problem."

Harry opened his bag and saw that Sonny had gotten him a book on the history of Russian Quidditch along with a miniature model of Sergey Kovalchuk the highest-scoring Chaser in the previous Quidditch World Cup. Ron had gotten some expensive Russian ceramics. For some unknown reason, Ron was a big collector of ceramics.

"What'd you get my wife?" Ron asked.

"Russian jewelry," Sonny replied.

"She'll love it. Thanks, man."

"Well, I've got to go brief the Minister," Sonny said, "stay here and do your jobs. Harry, go get someone to give that Granger girl a tour."

"All right."

 _Souk Alley, Tehran, Iran_

"Well, well, well…if it isn't the famous Lucius Malfoy," Ben said, gripping his wand.

Ben and Katie had been walking through the market, when Katie had noticed an out-of-place man in a cloak buying some apples. Ben had immediately recognized him as Lucius Malfoy which had led to the current arrangement.

"Ben Murray and his slut, Katie Ryan," Malfoy said, nodding and flipping the cloak off his head.

Katie had little reaction to the insult, but Ben almost charged him right then.

"You'll pay for that, you bastard!" Ben shouted.

"Unfortunately, my parents were married when I was conceived," Malfoy shot back, his eyes glittering as he started circling them, "unlike your mother, the slutty little whore. I had her a few times. Rather enjoyed it."

"Don't get upset, Ben," Katie whispered, "wait for him to put his guard down."

Ben tried to calm down. Katie was right. Malfoy was lazy and arrogant. Sooner or later, he'd put his guard down and they could attack. He noticed out of the corner of his eye, that the other wizards in this area of the market had backed away, but were still watching.

"What are you doing here, Malfoy?"

"What are you doing here, yourself?" Malfoy asked. "I'm here, buying apples. I get hungry, you know."

"Why the hell are you in Iran?"

"None of your business," Malfoy replied, "but I daresay that my master will be interested to know that you are here."

"Yeah, yeah," Ben said, "listen, buddy. So, how's your ferret…er, son doing?"

It had the desired effect. Draco Malfoy had been famously turned into a ferret by Harry Potter after Malfoy had insulted Harry's current line of work. Captured by a _Prophet_ photographer, the picture of the white ferret bouncing around had made it onto the front page of a dozen newspapers including _Witch Weekly_ and even _The Quibbler_.

Lucius Malfoy then made his mistake. In his anger, he had unconsciously started twirling his wand. Katie pulled out her own wand and yelled, " _Stupefy!_ "

Malfoy barely dodged the red light. Snarling, he shouted some hex and Ben easily blocked the blue-colored jinx. Katie and Ben started spreading out a bit, to attack Malfoy from both sides.

He was soon forced to jump from side to side, desperately trying to avoid both attacks. Ben grinned and began walking towards Malfoy certain of victory.

That was his mistake.

Malfoy suddenly aimed a roundhouse kick at Ben and he connected with a _thunk_. Ben felt the foot fly into his face and he fell to the ground, pain echoing in every cell of his body.

Ben felt dead. Random thoughts began to circulate into his head. Damn, he had never eaten at that restaurant on the corner. He had always wanted to sample that…he started closing his eyes.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Luna Lovegood walked into the headquarters of the DCI, heading straight for the office of Ron Weasley, who debriefed her. She thought the redhead was cute and it was a shame he already had a wife. _Well, I could probably change that…_

"Ah…did our ickle friend feel restless today?" Ron asked, nodding for Luna to sit down.

Luna was a prostitute. Twenty-three years old, with long golden-brown hair and deep sea protuberant blue-green eyes, she was the best-looking woman Ron had ever seen. And that included his wife. Harry was the one who had recruited her. They had been friendly at Hogwarts but Luna had dropped out after her fifth year when her father had been killed leaving her orphaned and irrevocably depressed.

Harry had had his qualms when recruiting her but Luna had assured him she was doing of it her own volition, that it was completely safe, and afforded her a very reasonable income. More importantly, all powerful men had their needs and they had been hoping that Luna might get business from a Lucius Malfoy or his son, Draco. Maybe even Lestrange or Macnair.

But amazingly, they had hooked Voldemort. Luna had been walking along the streets of the 'Back Alley' as the prostitute area of London's wizard community was referred to when a hand had suddenly grabbed her. Surprised, in the shadows she had found herself face-to-face with Wormtail, whom she had been taught to recognize by Harry. Wormtail then took her to Voldemort's headquarters and told her that she was to be Voldemort's personal 'exerciser.' Immediately afterwards, she had headed to the DCI and had told Ron and Harry about it.

Both had been stunned impressed beyond words. From then on, she was to report to them directly after having a session with Voldemort.

Ron nodded at her, "Start."

"Well, he held off for quite long this time. His orgasm according to my watch took twenty-six minutes from the moment he started stroking my breasts. He seemed more energetic this time than last week. Nothing else happened during sex."

"What about afterwards?" Ron knew that the most important time for intelligence-gathering was after sex. Voldemort would be sleepy and satisfied and more inclined to talk.

"He was very satisfied this time and talked more than usual today," Luna said, "he mentioned something about a meeting next Tuesday with somebody. He also said that the Iranians were good guys and he was glad that they might be on his side. Of course, I did my usual, 'listen, nod, tell him he's the greatest' routine. Nothing else, really."

"Thanks, Luna," Ron said, writing everything down, "you've been a great help."

"You're welcome," she said. "You know, we really should get together some time."

Ron smiled weakly and was about to refuse as usual when she walked up to him and rubbed his nose, slowly…erotically. Ron's mind lost all sense of thought. Lavender went flying out of his mind.

He moved away from the desk and stood in front of Luna, his hands playing in her brown hair.

"Damn, you are beautiful," Ron whispered.

"How do you like this?" she asked, opening a fold in her robes, pulling her bra down slightly, and revealing the rounded, shadowy glories within.

Ron almost choked in anticipation and began touching her. She leaned back on the desk and Ron shoved the papers away. He began pulling off his clothes, not caring about anything. Not his wife…not his work…not the compromising position they were in, if anyone happened to walk in. Absently, he shot a Locking Charm on the door…and then turned back to Luna, whose back was arched and eagerly awaiting him.

Harry returned to his office, puzzled at the information that Ron's secretary had given him. Supposedly, a Locking Charm had been cast on the door and she had assumed that Ron was doing something important and didn't want to be bothered. Harry had left a message with her to tell Ron when he was done to come over to his office.

He wanted to talk to Ron about the situation in Iran. Malfoy and the Lestranges had already been spotted there, training terrorists. Terrorist attacks were occurring in England. They needed to discuss any protective measures that needed to be taken for the building and for the city.

Oh well…he hoped Ron would be done with his important work soon.

Ron had also smartly placed a Silencing Charm on the door before entering her, so when he screamed out his release, nobody heard him. He gently rolled off Luna and stood over her, gently running his hand along her breasts.

"Oh, Ron," she whispered, "that was amazing."

"You were too," Ron said back. "Lavender doesn't even compare to this."

"None of my customers, either."

Ron began putting on his clothes and sat back on his desk chair, Luna still lying naked across his desk.

"Listen, get some clothes on. I need to tell Harry about these developments with Voldemort, all right?"

Luna began slowly putting on her panties and bra, just seductively enough to taunt Ron's regrowing bulge.

"Can we do this again sometime?" she asked.

"Come to my house on Friday at seven. My wife's leaving on a trip to Norway in the morning that day. She'll be gone until Monday."

"An entire weekend with you?" Luna asked, raising her eyebrows.

"My pleasure."

"Mine too," she said back, and ran her hand across his forehead one last time.

Ron, for his part, touched her breasts, "All right, go. I'll see you on Friday."

"Good-bye."

Luna walked out of the room, but Ron's secretary had left for coffee and couldn't see her sweaty body and began to ask questions. Ron began cleaning up his desk, his mind reeling. He had just committed adultery.

But he had loved it.

Damn it, screw Lavender anyway, he thought. Their marriage had been slowly becoming strained in the past few months. Lavender disappeared more and more…and trips like this one to Norway were becoming more and more frequent. They had gotten into a fight last week that had ended with Lavender slapping Ron and Ron leaving the house. He had returned the next day, but they had barely talked since then.

No one knew about it, even Harry. Harry thought that Ron was having a happy marriage, but Ron couldn't bear to tell his best friend that his marriage was falling apart.

Filing away the last of his papers, he stood. No, there was nothing wrong with having sex with Luna. Yes, she was a prostitute, but Ron felt that there was depth behind those often cold eyes. There was more to her and he was determined to find it.

Grabbing his notes and whispering a quick cleaning charm on them, he headed over to Harry's office.

 _Souk Alley, Tehran, Iran_

Ben suddenly felt energy begin to restore in his limbs. He wasn't dead after all! With an inhuman roar, he lifted his body off the ground and saw that Katie had revived him with a simple, "Ennervate!" She was now dealing with Malfoy, who was slowly advancing on her.

At the roar, Malfoy turned around and saw that Ben had picked himself off the floor.

"Our hero returns," he said, laughing sadistically.

"That's right," Ben replied, "and this hero's gonna kick your little ass."

Malfoy rolled his eyes, while still keeping his wand ready so as to be able to deflect any spell Katie or Ben threw at him.

Suddenly Katie shouted and that distracted Malfoy. He whirled towards her and that gave Ben enough time to disarm him. Malfoy looked shocked as he saw the wand fly away from him and land in Ben's outstretched arm.

" _Stupefy_!" he shouted.

Malfoy dodged it and suddenly grabbed Katie, throwing her wand away. He pulled out a knife from his pocket and held it to her throat.

"Make one move and the bitch loses her life," he said.

Ben looked around at the surroundings. There was nothing around that could help him. If he made one wrong move, Malfoy would cut her throat.

"Okay, I won't make a move."

"Drop the wands," Malfoy instructed, " _slowly_."

Ben slowly put Malfoy's wand to the ground and then dropped his wand next to it. Malfoy looked satisfied.

"Good," he said, "now-"

He was interrupted by a knee in the groin. Katie had struggled free enough to knee him and Malfoy doubled over. Ben grabbed his wand and put it to Malfoy's face.

"Don't even think about moving," he said, quickly putting magically binding ropes around his knees.

Malfoy grinned ferally at him, "I think you'll remember this day as the day you _almost_ caught Lucius Malfoy."

"Almost?"

Before Katie or Ben could stop him, Malfoy managed to get one of his fingers into his pockets and disappeared.

"Dammit, Portkey," Ben said angrily, walking over to where Malfoy had been.

Katie shook her head, "At least we learned a lesson today…don't underestimate him."

"Yeah."

Ben motioned for the villagers to return to their activities and they headed back to their hotel.

"I better tell Harry and Ron."

Katie nodded and Ben quickly wrote it in its encrypted form and sent it with Dante. It was seven o'clock here. They would probably get it in an hour or so.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Ron showed Harry the data that Luna had come up with, managing not to blush or to act any differently while talking about her. Harry had noted with interest the meeting Voldemort had scheduled for next week.

"Let's see if we can get some information out of ROBIN," Harry said, "maybe he'll know something."

"Okay, I'll send him a letter."

"So…" said Harry, "how was she?"

"How was who?" Ron asked, completely aware of the fact that he was becoming beet red.

"Oh, come on," said Harry, "it's written all over your face. You just had sex with Luna."

"All right, all right. I confess," Ron said, feeling guilty, "she was great, by the way."

Harry laughed, but then his face hardened, "You have a wife, Ron. Why are you playing around?"

"I'm not playing around!" Ron said hotly, "My marriage is messed up already. Lavender keeps disappearing on trips and she slapped me last week. I know that's not that big of a deal, but I think we're going to get divorced."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry asked, putting a hand on his best friend's shoulder.

Ron shook his head, wiping the tears angrily out of his eyes, "I just _couldn't_. Dammit, you're my best friend, Harry. I thought you'd be mad at me for messing up so badly."

"Ron, I _told_ you not to get married."

"I know, I know," Ron said, "but I thought I was in love. I don't know…you were right. Marriage is not a smart thing to get involved in. It just leads to your wife controlling you and messing you up."

"It's all right, buddy," Harry said, "how serious is it with Luna anyway?"

"I don't know," Ron replied, "I have this inner feeling that I want to get to know her better and there's more to her than meets the eye-"

"Which is plenty-" Harry added.

Ron laughed, "Yeah, but like I was saying, I think I want to get to know her better. She's coming over to my house on Friday."

"What about Lavender?"

He shrugged, "She's going on a 'trip' to Norway until Monday. I don't really care…"

Harry sat back down in his chair, "Listen, Ron. I'm always gonna be there for you. You're my best friend. Tell me how it's going with Luna and if on Monday, you think that you really want to get to know her better and that you're done with Lavender, go ahead and file the divorce papers. I do _not_ want you miserable."

"OK," said Ron, a smile finally breaking through on his face.

"And remember," Harry added, "it's important to national security that you stay happy. Maybe we could raise Luna's payments…"

Ron laughed and Harry was glad that he had made his friend a little happier.

 _Tap. Tap._

They looked up and saw Dante, Ben's owl, tapping the window. Harry rushed over and let the owl in. After Harry took the letter off his leg, Dante flew over to Hedwig's cage and began sipping from the water. Hedwig liked Dante a lot. She always let him sip from her water and Harry sometimes saw a warmth in her eyes that she never gave anyone, even Harry whom she loved dearly.

"Wonder when they're gonna make baby owls," Ron said.

Harry rolled his eyes and began quickly decrypting the letter. After five minutes, he finished. They both read it:

 _Hey Harry, Sonny, and Ron,_

 _Guess who Katie and I got attacked by today? None other than Lucius Malfoy. We met him at the market. I got a bit shaken up and so did Katie, but she kneed him in the groin. Anyway, he escaped even after we put Apparition-binding ropes on him, because he had a Portkey in his pocket. It was a decent battle, and he was better than I expected._

 _At any rate, we're finding Tehran to be too hot and very hostile to the English. They're okay with us 'Canadians' but if we talk about British people or Americans they go berserk. Same old, same old as far as the Ministry and liking terrorist organizations are concerned. One guy even tried to give me a brochure on how to join a terrorist organization. I kept it of course, so we can take a look at it._

 _Do you think we should come home, because I don't like the fact that the Dark Lord knows that Katie and I are in Tehran. Your decision._

 _Ben Murray_

"Got into a fight with Malfoy, eh?"

Harry shook his head, "What's that saying, again? Oh yeah, 'it's a small world.' I hate that fricking saying. Anyway, get Sonny in here. We need to talk about this."

Ron told Nicole to go get Sonny which she did in about three minutes. Sonny walked in.

"Hey guys," he said.

Harry handed him the letter which he read quickly.

"Okay, what do you think, Harry? These guys _are_ under your directorate…do you want to bring them home?"

He shook his head, "I don't think Voldemort's going to bother attacking them. Yes, they're field officers and he knows that, but what he _doesn't_ know is how good they are. He'll think that they're useless and unimportant even with Malfoy being almost captured so he won't waste his time. The latest report from Luna (he handed Sonny that, too) says that he's pretty much focusing on a meeting next week with some unknown person. He won't waste his time."

"Ron?"

"I agree with Harry. Although I do think it's time for them to stop wasting time in the street. Think they should meet with ROBIN undercover? I mean, instead of sending that letter, they can ask him face-to-face about the meeting next week," Ron said.

"Agreed," Sonny said, "write the letter."

"By the way, how was the briefing?"

"Boring as hell," Sonny replied, "your dad's a good listener, Ron, but it was still boring. Anyway, got all your Christmas shopping done?"

"Yeah," Harry said, remembering that Friday was Christmas. Ron too suddenly remembered that and realized he was meeting Luna on _Christmas Day._ Harry noted that Lavender was also leaving on a solitary trip that day. That definitely did not look good for Ron and Lavender's marriage.

"All right, I'll see you guys tomorrow. Go home, get some rest."

"Will do, boss."

"Wanna go get a beer, Ron?"

"Sure."

They walked out of the room together and ran into Harry's secretary.

"Hey Nicole, you're off-duty."

"Thanks, Harry. I got Melissa to do the tour for Hermione and she finished that, so she's left. She'll be back tomorrow, though."

"Thanks, Nicole. See you tomorrow."

"Good night, Harry."

"Come on, Ron, let's hit Finnigan's."


	4. Itinerary

Hey guys, here's another update. Please, please review/share this story! It gets me excited to continue :) Thanks.

 **Thursday, December 24, 2004**

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Christmas Eve dawned in London, cold and snowy. Harry found the fire already heated up by Mark, who was back in from his sickness. Dammit, it was freezing. He began the usual read-through of yesterday's take from his officers that were around the world. O'Connell and Pearson said that a source in the Pakistani Ministry had heard that the Minister was thinking about joining Voldemort. Hall and McLendon said that India was quiet today, for once-

The door swung open and Hermione walked in, bundled up in a bright blue jumper. Her hair had a dusting of white on it that sparkled like a tiara. Harry swallowed at the ethereal sight but had to move on.

"Fire's in the corner," he said, trying to finish up the readings.

Gratefully, she went over and warmed her hands by the fire.

"Thanks," she said.

"No problem, sit down," he said, waving her into a seat across from him.

"So how was yesterday?" she asked.

"Harrowing," he replied honestly, "a bunch of unexpected stuff came up, so that was a little bit hard. That's why we had to get you the tour. Did you like it?"

"Yeah, it was great," she said, smiling warmly.

Her face was pink from the cold and he realized she had never looked so damn pretty. She hadn't noticed at his staring as she was still trying to warm her arms.

Waiting for her to finish warming up, Harry turned back to his readings. Hmmm…that was interesting. Price said that the Australian government had been studiously neutral when asked about where they stood on Voldemort…

 _Fundamentalist Hotel, Tehran, Iran_

"Want to get some lunch?" Katie asked.

"Sure," Ben replied.

It was about one o'clock and they had just finished getting a message off to ROBIN, their undercover in the UIW organization. Ben was hungry and so was Katie. They hadn't eaten anything since their light breakfast of toast.

They went into a local Italian restaurant. They got their table after a wait of about two minutes. Ben ordered himself a Coke and Katie got herself a coffee. Neither liked to drink on the job and in an Islamic country it was rather hard to find a place to get wine or beer anyway.

"I can't believe they want us to stay," Katie said, her face looking over the possibilities for lunch.

"Neither can I," Ben replied, "I mean they talked about their reason, this ROBIN thing and stuff…but still, what if Voldemort just showed up and attacked us? Then what?"

Ben didn't believe in the fear of a name. Voldemort was just Voldemort. Harry had also made sure that any officer who worked for him didn't have a fear of saying the name.

"Then we're dead," Katie said, "but how would that be different from any other day?"

She had a point. They risked their lives to almost no end in this business. That was their job. To apply the intelligence gotten by the DCI. To stop terrorist acts and Death Eaters. It definitely wasn't for someone afraid of death.

"What would you like for lunch, sir and madam?" the waiter asked in Farsi.

"Veal francese for me and chicken parmigiana for him," Katie realied.

After the waiter left, Ben said, "I always wondered by they made us learn Farsi when we joined the DCI."

Katie laughed, "Yeah, I guess they figured that sooner or later, a field officer is going to end up here."

Ben nodded, but he wasn't really listening. He was surreptitiously stealing glances at Katie. She was so beautiful…her brown hair…her liquid brown eyes…her glorious neck…dammit, he wanted her. _Focus, Ben, focus_.

"What do you want to do after lunch?"

 _You_ , a part of his mind immediately thought. He racked his head for a more suitable thought.

"Er…I don't know. It _is_ Christmas Eve…"

"Want to go shop?"

"Sure…although I don't know what they sell around here," Ben said.

She laughed, "So what did you get me for Christmas?"

"Not telling," said Ben, sticking out his tongue at her. She had been trying to find out for over two weeks.

She stuck her tongue out back at him, which led to them both laughing. _This is going to be a good day_ , Ben thought.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

"Harry?"

Harry and Hermione both looked at the door, where Sonny was standing.

"Hey, I just got a letter from Ron's dad. He wants all three of us at the Ministry fifteen minutes from now."

"Can I come?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded, "Sure. But if he says that you're not cleared for it or whatever, then you'll have to leave the room."

She bobbed her head up and down and grabbed her quill of the desk.

"Hold onto my hand. We'll Apparate together."

Hermione put her hand in his and was shocked at the warmth and electricity she felt in his hand. It was unlike anything she had felt before.

"All right. Three-two-one-"

They appeared in Mr. Weasley's office. It was large and spacious and soon Sonny and Ron joined them. Mr. Weasley was sitting behind his desk and his chief of staff, Tom van Damm was standing next to him.

"Sit down," he motioned.

The four sat down in chairs that were quickly conjured by Tom.

"Who's she?"

"I'm a reporter who's covering the DCI for the _Daily Prophet_ ," Hermione said.

"Does she need to leave?" Harry asked.

Mr. Weasley shook his head, "It doesn't matter. Okay, Harry…I received a communication from the American Ministry. They want to discuss the possible agreement on the war with you."

"Why not you, sir, or Sonny?"

Mr. Weasley shrugged, "They specifically requested you and no one else. You'd leave tomorrow and be back on the 3rd."

Harry thought about it. It wasn't too bad. And America was an important ally. They needed her wizards and witches.

"Okay," he said, "I'll do it."

"Good," Mr. Weasley said. "That is, if Ron and Sonny also approve."

"Go ahead," Ron said and Sonny nodded his agreement.

"You're going to be going to the Muggle way because Minister Durling has spoke of dubious Apparition points-three people have died Apparating into America in the last week and nobody's sure why-and said that it would be safer if you arrive by plane. So we'll book you a plane ticket."

"That's okay," Harry said, giving Mr. Weasley the thumbs-up, "I won't let you down."

"Remember that this is very important," Tom van Damm stated. "We need America."

"I know."

"Okay, then you are free to leave."

The four Apparated back to Harry's office.

"Good luck, man," Ron said, shaking Harry's hand.

"Hey Ron and Harry, you're still coming to my Christmas party tonight, right?" Sonny asked.

"Wouldn't miss it," Harry said.

"Hermione, do you want to come?" Sonny asked.

"Er…sure…I didn't have any other plans…"

"Cool. I'll see you tonight, then."

Harry nodded as Sonny and Ron left the room.

"I want to come with you to America."

Harry turned around and saw Hermione's open, expectant face. He sighed.

"Why?"

"This would be a great opportunity as a reporter to see what you really do," Hermione said, before adding with a small smile, "pleeeeaaassseee."

He rolled his eyes. She was begging like a three year old.

"OK. If it's all right with the _Prophet_ and with Mr. Weasley."

"Yes!" Harry watched amusedly as Hermione danced around happily.

"You can't interfere in the talks."

"Yes, I know. I'll just be quiet and watch," she said.

"All right. I'll go ask Mr. Weasley."

 _Abdullah's Café, Tehran, Iran_

It was dinner time in Tehran and Ben and Katie were dining in a small bistro just a few blocks away from their hotel. Katie looked stunning, dressed in a silky white gown and Ben himself was dressed in proper wizarding robes of navy blue. Both had decided to dress up a little bit for Christmas Eve.

"You want to take a walk?" Ben asked, after they had both finished their meals and paid the bill.

"Sure."

They walked outside. Even though it was December, it was still so hot that they didn't need jackets. Ben looked out of the corner of his eye at her. She was so beautiful…he wanted to do something about it.

"Katie?"

She turned and looked straight at him. God…those eyes, those chocolate eyes…

"Yes?"

Ben sighed and then decided to get everything out of his system, "Katie, I know this sounds really dumb…but I've wanted to tell you this for a long time and I'm going to tonight."

"What?" she asked curiously.

"I love you," he said. "I don't know what else to say. I just love you. I know we've been partners for a long time...but I can't help it. I love you."

Katie looked shocked. Her eyes were a mixture of surprise, inquisitiveness… and…hope? Ben couldn't be sure.

"I know that you don't return these feelings, but I'm glad that I could finally get it out of-"

Ben was stopped in the middle of his rambling by Katie's lips firmly meeting his. His eyes widened as he realized that Katie was kissing him. Coming to his senses, his hands flew down to her waist as hers wrapped around his neck.

After three minutes, they stopped, greedily sucking air into their lungs.

"Katie…" he whispered.

"Ben," she whispered back, "I love you. I always have. I can't believe you actually love me back…"

Ben smiled nervously at her. He couldn't believe it. The woman of his dreams had _kissed_ him and then told him that she loved him. He was in heaven. Anxiously, he pinched himself to see if it was all a dream. Pain.

"You want to talk?"

Ben and Katie spent the next few hours walking on the streets of Tehran, telling each other when they had fallen in love with the other, why they had never said anything about it, and even talked about what everyone back at the office would say.

An alarm rang on Ben's watch. He looked down. It was twelve o'clock. Christmas.

"Merry Christmas, Katie."

"Merry Christmas, Ben," she said, leaning forward and capturing his lips once more.

Their kiss lasted longer this time and after a few minutes, Ben tentatively ran his tongue across her lip. She opened up immediately in response and their tongues dueled gently with each other.

Finally, they stopped and Katie slipped something out of her purse.

"Christmas gift," she said, handing it to him.

He opened it. It was a wand servicing kit from Diagon Alley. Damn, his wand really _did_ need polishing.

"Thanks, Katie! You're the best!"

She smiled softly back at him, "Looking at the condition of your wand, I _had_ to get this for you."

"Well, here's my gift to you," Ben said, handing her a circular object, "it's not magical or anything, but I thought you'd like it."

Katie opened it up. It was a snow globe. She gasped in wonder at it. She had loved snow globes since she was three years old. It always reminded her of her (late) mother who had given her a snow globe every Christmas.

"Oh, Ben-"

She kissed him again and he ran his hand through her silky locks, thanking God for giving him such a great person to love…and letting her love him back.

 _McLeod Home, Greenwich, England_

"Hey, Caroline!" Harry said, walking over and kissing Sonny's wife on the cheek.

"Hey, Harry! How have you been?" she asked.

"Pretty good," he replied, "sorry we had to keep your husband away for so long. We _did_ need him to travel that week."

She laughed, "Don't worry about it…and who's this gorgeous girl with you?"

Hermione blushed. Harry had told her to follow him so he could introduce her to everybody. She hadn't expected people to call her gorgeous…or think that she was his date.

"This is Hermione Granger. She's a reporter for the _Daily Prophet_ doing a report on the DCI."

"Take good care of Harry, miss," Caroline told her, winking, "he's a good man and Sonny says that he's the most important person in the DCI."

Hermione smiled weakly, but Harry rolled his eyes, "Sonny's always too humble. He's the Director…he's the most important guy."

Caroline simply smiled, "Well, I'm sure you can decide that later…Where are Ron and Lavender, by the way?"

Harry grimaced inwardly. Ron had told him that Lavender had told him point-blank that there was no way she was going to this party. He had come alone, but several people had already asked him where his wife was, and all he could say was, "She was busy."

"I don't know…Lavender was busy, so he came alone." he said.

She shrugged, "Okay, I'll go find him, then. Have fun tonight!"

"Thanks, Caroline."

"So, want to meet some more people?" Harry asked Hermione.

"Sure."

Harry led her to another group of people, Ministry workers who had backed the founding of the DCI. Mr. Weasley was cracking jokes and laughing with the rest of them. Earlier, he had told Harry that it was okay if Hermione went with him to America.

The night went on and Harry had several glasses of wine before it was over. Finally, everyone looked up at the clock waiting it to strike twelve.

It rang and even though it wasn't New Year's or anything, several couples kissed. Harry and Hermione simply looked awkwardly at each other.

The crowd began straggling out of Sonny's house, some not too sober.

"Thanks for the party, Sonny. It was great," Harry said.

"No problem, man. See you when you get back."

"All right," Harry said, "same to you, Ron. Have a good time and I'll see you when I get back."

Ron nodded; Harry winked at him, reminding him that he was going to meet Luna later on this day (since it was already Christmas Day).

Harry and Hermione walked out together.

"Got all your stuff packed for tomorrow? Remember, Muggle clothing."

"Yes, I know. I've got it packed. Anything else I need to know?"

"Yeah, be at Heathrow at nine-thirty. Dress well. I'll be waiting at the gate," Harry said.

"See you then."

"Good night, Hermione."

"Good night, Harry."


	5. Negotiations

Really glad a lot of people seem to be enjoying this story. Review, review, review! Here's the next chapter.

 **Chapter Five-Negotiations**

 **Friday, December 25, 2004**

 _Potter Home, London, England_

Harry ran his hand through her brown hair, letting her nakedness wash over him.

"Oh, God…" he whispered.

Who was this girl? He strained to look into her eyes, trying to see who it was that was giving him such pleasure.

He almost stopped right in the middle of sex, recognizing the intelligent, thoughtful look in her brown eyes.

It was Hermione.

"HERMIONE!"

"Harry…I love you," she whispered.

Harry was in no mood to argue, so he continued moving in and out of her, enjoying the feeling. Hermione or not, he certainly wasn't going to stop.

"Time to wake up," Hermione said.

"WHAT?"

"Time to wake up!"

Harry opened his eyes and saw his housekeeper, Devon, anxiously shaking him awake.

"Sir, it's time to wake up. You have to catch your flight!"

"Yeah, okay…thanks, Devon."

"No problem, sir."

She left the room to continue cleaning the kitchen. Harry rolled out of bed, stretching his arms. He felt hot and sweaty all over and the wetness in his pants was enough to attest that he had been having a ' _serious_ ' dream as Ron liked to refer to them as.

But _Hermione_? He had been dreaming about having sex with Hermione? He went into the bathroom to have a cold shower. Now was not the time to be thinking of such things.

 _It was only a dream_ , he reassured himself _, it doesn't mean anything_. Satisfied with this excuse, Harry proceeded to get ready for the flight. He was dressed in a blue oxford dress shirt with dark slacks. He was also wearing a black suit coat over that. Harry felt that he was dressed as the quintessential businessman.

Now he had to go meet Hermione at the airport. _I wonder what she'll be wearing…maybe nothing_ , Harry thought, before hurriedly shaking that thought out of his head. He tried to file the dream away into a deep corner of his mind, so he wouldn't think about it anymore, but it didn't work. He couldn't get the image of Hermione on top of him, her hair dangling wildly over her back and her breasts lolling lusciously in front of his face, out of his head.

Sonny had lent him a Ministry car to get to the airport. Harry had learned how to drive three years ago before embarking on a trip to Moscow. That brought back such good memories…Sonny, his head against the car, Narmonov pointing a wand in his face…Harry, running onto the scene, yelling for Narmonov to stop…Complete chaos…

He reached the airport in about fifteen minutes and after checking in with the ticket claims people, he headed to the gate to wait for Hermione. Absently, he tapped his foot as he waited. The motion inadvertently reminded him of his dream… _dammit, Harry, get it out of your mind._

He felt a tap on his shoulder. He whirled around and saw that it was only Hermione.

And damn, was she dressed well.

She was wearing a white blouse with a light blue jacket over it. Her skirt was short and dark blue. It contrasted very nicely and Harry felt his traitorous body react to the remembrance of the dream.

"Hi, Harry. Do you think I dressed well enough?"

"You look great," Harry said, smiling, "it's fine. We just want to give every impression of respect and importance to the Americans. It's part of the diplomatic game. Even though you're just a reporter coming along for a story, you're pretty much part of the game, because they'll see you as part of _me_. But don't worry about it, you look amazing."

"Thanks," she said, smiling radiantly. _That smile sure was beautiful_.

Weakly, Harry motioned for her to follow him as the plane began boarding. It was a red-eye flight and many people were booked on it as usual. Harry had reserved first class so they got to go on first.

They sat down in the long, comfortable seats and Harry stretched his legs out. First class was definitely something he enjoyed.

"I've never flown first class before," Hermione said, buckling into her seat.

Harry smiled at her, "It's great. The stewardesses are really, really nice to you instead of just being plain nice. We can watch movies and eat ice cream…it's really a lot better than coach."

"I'll bet."

They waited silently as the plane began taxiing down to the runway.

"You know, I don't really like flying," Harry said. "Ron says it's because it's out of my control. _I_ can't do anything about it…and I don't like entrusting my life to someone else. I guess I agree with his diagnosis…flying can be damn scary. I've done it so many goddamn times, but I hate taking off. I just can't stand it."

"It's not too bad," Hermione said, "besides, how many times have you flown before?"

"More than I care to remember."

Harry began gripping his seat nervously as the plane started to pick up speed down the runway. Hermione looked over at him and placed a hand in his. It was soft and cool to the touch. Harry relaxed.

Soon, the plane was airborne and cruising at a level of twenty-seven thousand feet. Hermione still hadn't let go of his hand and he didn't particularly want her to remove it either. Suddenly, she became aware of it, and began to pull back, but Harry pulled her hand back into his.

"Don't stop," he whispered.

She nodded silently.

It was a strange experience for both of them. Hermione had had a couple boyfriends before, but it had _never_ been anything like this. She was not ashamed to be a virgin but even beyond that her experience was rather…limited. Now, she was holding hands with Harry Potter and enjoying it like nothing she had felt before. Every time, she looked at him, she felt her heart fluttering.

Harry had never felt so…so… _needing_ …for this. He _wanted_ her to hold his hand for the rest of time. He _wanted_ her to be the one who made him feel jittery as she was making him feel now. It was an extremely foreign experience.

"Coffee, sir?"

Harry looked up at the stewardess and ordered two coffees. They drank their coffees still holding hands. Harry felt his toes curl, almost…happily? He was feeling strange…almost like he was drunk.

The flight was a long one and Harry dozed off a few times, but their hands continued to hold together. Hermione, for one, looked like she couldn't sleep. She kept making sideways glances at their hands and giving little grins. Harry thought it was so damn cute…but he restrained himself. Now was not the time to act like an idiot.

"The flight will be landing in twenty minutes. Thank you for your service today and for flying British Airways. This is Captain Justin Mancuso speaking and speaking for both the staff and company, I'd like to wish you a Happy New Year!"

 _About five and a half days till New Year_ …The plane landed twenty minutes later, and Harry finally removed his hand from Hermione's. Smiling awkwardly at each other, they stood up and deplaned.

"Come on; someone's going to be waiting for us."

A few people were holding up signs with names on them and Harry went over to the one that read POTTER.

"Do you still make your muffins with blueberries?"

"Yes, the kind my wife makes is most delightful. And have you continued hunting?"

"The fox are difficult, but I focus on the pigeons."

They both nodded at each other. Hermione looked a bit surprised, but Harry explained that those were code phrases that they used to make sure the other person was really the one they were supposed to go to, preventing infiltration (or at least a good attempt at it).

The man, who introduced himself as James Sharp, led them to the car and explained that he was the senior aide to Frodo Wood, the American Wizard Intelligence Agency Director.

" _Frodo_?" asked Hermione, biting her lip to keep from laughing.

"Yeah, his parents named him after the Hobbit," said Sharp, grinning, "constant joke around the Agency. We nicknamed the headquarters, 'Bag End.' Anyway, get inside. I'll take you there."

They got into the car, Harry sitting in the front and Hermione in the back. Sharp punched in a radio signal.

"Sharp to Bag End. Have picked up two arrivals. Passed code phrase. Coming back to Bag End now."

"Bag End copies, Sharp. Good work. Drive fast."

"Thanks."

Sharp began to hop in and out of the highways and explained, "Our Agency is set out in the countryside and has all the normal anti-Muggle preventions on it, including a few extra precautions, of course. We have a road leading into it, because we use cars a lot."

"So, do you know why we're here?" Harry asked him.

"Yes, but I can't tell you. Frodo will brief you when you get there. It should be minor, but I expect the negotiations to take a few days."

"Yes, negotiations are like that," Harry said, laughing, "it takes three hours to pretty much say something you could say in a minute."

Sharp grinned, "Yeah. Don't worry about it…Frodo and the Minister want to be on your side as much as you want us to be on your side. This won't fail…it's just a few minor complications."

"Why did you want me specifically?"

"Minister Durling wanted to meet you," said Sharp, shrugging, "and, after all, we figured we could more easily convince the members of our own Ministry if you gave the endorsement."

"How long till we get there?"

"About ten minutes."

Harry nodded and turned back to Hermione, "All right back there?"

"I'm fine," she said, smiling, "but I do have a question for Mr. Sharp. How does that radio work?"

"It's magically oriented so not to short out when exposed to all the magic," Sharp explained, "we do that with a lot of Muggle technology. Even though many wizards look down on Muggles, they have a lot of things we could use. Guns can be useful. Instant communication with telephones and radios. We haven't figured out a way to fix a telephone to work in a magical environment, but our tech guys tell us it's only a matter of time."

Harry nodded, smirking at the thought that the DCI _already_ had telephones working in a magical environment. Of course, they could only afford one portable, and cell phones were the important ones. Oh well…that's why they needed that budget increase pushed through the Ministry. And if they succeeded in this, Mr. Weasley and van Damm were more likely to help them with that.

A large building rose out of the farmlands in front of them, white with marble. It wasn't an especially beautiful building, but it wasn't ugly either. _It looks like a place to get some real work done_ , Harry thought.

And that's what it was.

 _Hotel Paradise, Tehran, Iran_

Ben woke up. Damn. It was only seven o'clock. He turned off his alarm and picked up the telephone to order breakfast. A croissant sounded good this morning. He opened his eyes a little bit more. Man, he was tired.

Suddenly, the memories of last night flew into his mind. Kissing Katie… giving her the snow globe…walking back to the hotel, holding hands…kissing each other good night before going back into their rooms…

He smiled. Yesterday had been a good day. Today was going to be an even better one. ROBIN still hadn't written back, so when they did get a message back from him, they would probably set up a meeting for tomorrow or something.

That left today for just him and Katie.

Yep, it was definitely gonna be a good day.

After showering and eating his croissant, he walked over to Katie's room and knocked.

"Come in."

He cast a quick breath-freshening spell on his mouth before heading in. Ben almost choked when he saw that she was only wearing a towel. Evidently, she had just come out of the shower. The towel covered her breasts, but not overly so. And it only reached down to her mid-thighs.

She smirked at him and said sarcastically, "Oh, I wasn't expecting _you_."

Ben laughed and walked over to her, "Listen, do you want to get dressed? I can leave…"

"Don't worry about it. I'll just go into the bathroom."

She went into the bathroom and Ben sat on her bed, waiting for her. Much as he liked her, he didn't like the idea of kissing her while she was only wearing a towel. He didn't trust himself enough for that. He'd probably go overboard.

She finally came back out, wearing a clean blue blouse and a short skirt.

"Well, I think we've got today off," Ben said, "we'll get a letter back from ROBIN, but that'll probably mean a meeting tomorrow. What do you want to do?"

"This."

She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. She tasted like peaches, Ben thought as he put his arms on her waist. It was very sweet-tasting.

He looked up into her eyes and saw them shining. He smiled. He was a happy man.

Ben lay on the bed, Katie on top of him, and they kissed for a long time.

 _Cafe Abdullah, Tehran, Iran_

"Mr. Malfoy," the man said.

Malfoy nodded at the man. His code name was SOLDIER. He was an informant in the UIW. Malfoy held contempt for the man…he knew that the man was pretty much a traitor to his organization. He didn't like traitors. But he was a good source and you always treated good sources like they were important.

The man rubbed his toothbrush mustache absently, "What is it your master asks me to tell you?"

"He wants to know where the headquarters of the UIW are."

"Why?"

"The why does not concern you," Malfoy said, gritting his teeth, "just where is it?"

SOLDIER rolled his eyes, "It's in Bandar-e-Abbas, a city on the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz. Do you need to know the precise location in the city?"

"Within a block."

He gave the proper coordinates and Malfoy fished out the money.

"The rest of it will be delivered to you if you are correct."

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy. It's a pleasure doing business with you."

" _Not for me_ ," Malfoy whispered under his breath, after SOLDIER left. He stood up and left the bistro. He had to report this to his master.

 _Weasley Home, London, England_

Ron screamed his release, soon followed by Luna's.

"RON!"

Ron collapsed on top of the girl before gently removing himself from her and lazily put an arm around her shoulders.

"Oh, Ron…you are too kind to me," she whispered, putting her arms on his firm chest.

"No…you are the one who is kind to me."

It was their second time having sex that night and she'd only been here for three hours. Ron was having more fun and excitement than he had ever had in his life. He ran his hand through her golden-brown locks, admiring their silkiness.

"You really are beautiful."

"Thanks," she said, "you're handsome, too."

Ron nodded and absently continued running a hand along her breast.

"Why are you a prostitute?" Ron almost kicked himself as soon as the question came out of his mouth. Great, that was a wonderful way to ruin the evening.

She smiled at the expression on his face, "Don't worry about it. I don't mind you asking."

Ron smiled weakly back at her, and nodded for her to continue.

"I was on the street with no money and no job after I left Hogwarts. I was so depressed and I couldn't stay. Almost immediately when I wandered around London, guys started hitting on me. I didn't want to go into the Muggle world. The only way I could stay in the wizard world, yet make money, was to make use of this body," she said, pointing at her breasts. "So that's why I do this. It's a hard life, but it works and soon I'll have enough saved up to maybe get some private tutoring lessons and get a real job."

"What about the Voldemort deal?"

"Oh, that definitely helped speed up my retirement process…of course, I'll continue to do that work for you guys even while in retirement. I just won't be going around with other guys during that time."

"You're a nice girl, you know," he said after a moment's pause.

She looked straight into his eyes, "You really mean that?"

"Yes."

She gave him a long, but gentle kiss on the lips and then leaned back and smiled at the blissful expression on his face, "That's the nicest thing a person's said to me in a long time."

"You're welcome."

"You want to do it again?"

"You sure you can?" she asked, looking concernedly at him.

He eyed her supple breast and smirked, "You bet I can."

 _AWIA Headquarters, near Langley, Virginia_

Today, Sharp explained, they were supposed to rest. They'd meet with Frodo Wood and Minister Durling tomorrow. It was only two o'clock, but Harry was dead tired and had severe jet lag.

"We're putting you up in the lodgings in the department," he told them, as they walked into another hallway.

"You have lodgings here?" said Harry, looking at the walls interestedly.

"Yeah, not too many. Just enough for about ten people. It's one room with five bunk beds. All right with you?"

"Sure."

He led them into the room, which was quite spacious. Harry thanked Sharp gratefully for the ride and showing them to the lodgings and flopped onto the bed. Hermione sat down on a bed across from him.

"I wonder if this Mr. Frodo has a friend named Sam," she said, laughing as she lay down.

Harry had never read _The Lord of the Rings_ , so he just shrugged, "Sure, whatever."

She grinned at him, but all Harry could do was smile back before drifting off to sleep.

 **Saturday, December 26, 2004**

He awoke the next morning at six o'clock. Damn, he had slept for sixteen hours…well, that would help adjust him to the time zone. Hermione's bed was empty, he saw. She was probably already ready.

After a long shower and brushing, Harry pulled on another suit to wear to the meeting. While robes were more comfortable, Harry liked the way he looked in suits. He always wore suits when doing negotiations.

He walked out of the room and saw that someone was already waiting for him.

"Sir, I am to lead you to the breakfast hall."

"All right," said Harry, following the man down the many hallways.

The breakfast hall was empty, save for Sharp standing and Hermione sitting and eating. Harry hurried over and sat next to Hermione. Bacon and eggs appeared on his plate.

"Come on, you've got a meeting with Director Wood and Minister Durling in an hour," Sharp informed them. "By the way, we were going to wake you up ourselves, if you hadn't _finally_ woken up."

Harry shrugged, only slightly embarrassed. Hermione smirked at him, and he smiled weakly back. His eyes wandered over her body and he saw that she was wearing a nice silk pink blouse with a short blue skirt.

Sharp led them into another section of the building and walked them to a door that said WOOD in large block letters. He opened the door and they saw two men sitting in there, waiting for them.

The tall red-haired man stood up and came over to them.

"Thanks, James. That will be all."

Sharp left the room, giving Harry a thumbs-up of encouragement.

"I am Frodo Wood," the redhead said, "and this is the American Minister of Magic, Jonathan Durling."

The shorter, but more regal-looking man nodded, "Good morning, Harry…and this is the reporter we were told about?"

"Yes, I am Hermione Granger," Hermione said.

"Okay, sit down. You can only stay in this room if you acknowledge that you will not release any _specific_ information talked about in here and if you also will not say anything about an agreement between America and the U.S. You can only talk generally about things like this in any article you write. We will enforce this with a secrecy oath."

"Yes, sir," Hermione said.

"Good," Frodo said, "let's get down to business." He began to wave his wand to perform the necessary enchantments.

 _Cafe Abdullah, Tehran, Iran_

Katie tapped her foot impatiently. They were waiting for ROBIN to show up. Ben had ordered them both a coffee, but that had been ten minutes ago. They still hadn't gotten their coffee either.

Finally, they saw him amble towards them. He had a beard and was as Iranian as could be. No one would suspect that he was an informant.

"Sorry, ran a little bit late," he told them in English, sitting down.

"That's ok," said Ben, waving him off and thanking the waiter for finally bringing them their coffee.

"What do you want?"

"Information on any possible meetings next week."

"Meetings between whom?" ROBIN asked.

"Voldemort and somebody in your organization," Katie replied.

"Easy. He's having a meeting on Tuesday with my boss. According to one of my friends, they're going to discuss terms of agreement during the meeting."

"Where?"

"Bandar-e-Abbas, the headquarters of the UIW."

"Is there any way you could get to us an exact transcript of what is said during the meeting?" Ben asked.

"Again, easy," he replied, "every meeting our leader goes through, one of my friends is there and makes a copy of everything that is said. He then puts it in his diary for any later use by the Emir. It will be easy for me to transfer the notes from the diary to my own to get to you."

"You will, of course, be paid extra," Katie said.

"Yes," nodded ROBIN.

"Thank you for your help this time. How about we meet here, same time next Wednesday with the notes?"

"Okay."

Ben handed him a couple fifties in English pounds and ROBIN left.

"That's interesting. That's the first time we've heard him mention his boss by any title other than 'my leader' or 'my boss,'" Ben said.

"Yeah…the Emir. Doesn't that mean leader or something in Arabic?"

"I guess. We should probably send that back to the bosses. It might mean something to them. So…you want to go back to the hotel?"

Katie smiled, "What do you think?"

 _Weasley Home, London, England_

Ron was tired. Dead tired. Last night, Luna had made love with him three times. The aching in his bones was almost unbearable. He was so…tired. He looked next to him. Luna wasn't there.

Nervously, he jumped out of the bed, forgetting that he was still naked. He ran into the kitchen on his way to the door. But what he was looking for was in the kitchen. Luna was cooking something.

She looked over at him and smiled.

"Forgot to put your clothes on?" she asked. She herself was only scarcely dressed with a light green short top on and a very short skirt.

Ron grinned and walked over to her so that he was pressed up behind her.

"I guess so," he said, ghosting the whisper over the back of her neck.

She shivered, but tried to push him away, "Come on, let's have breakfast first. I'm making omelets like my grandmother used to make them."

"Sounds good," said Ron, and headed off to the bathroom to shower.

After showering and shaving, Ron put on a bathrobe. He smiled at himself in the mirror. He didn't plan on wearing it too long. As he was about to walk out of the bathroom, he realized what a crazy situation he was in.

Here he was, the Director of the Operations Directorate in the DCI, dressed only a bathrobe, about to go and make love to a prostitute, who was making _omelets_ in the kitchen like it was the most natural thing in the world, while his wife was out of town. The world was truly a strange place.

He walked back into the kitchen where Luna had put the omelets on two plates. There were placed on his kitchen table.

He sat down, "Thanks."

"You're welcome," she said, coming and sitting down next to him.

He began to eat them. "These are really good, love," Ron said and then stopped suddenly. Had he just called Luna 'love'? She had noticed too and was looking at him questioningly. He decided to smile benignly.

"Thanks," she said back, still looking a bit confused and…a bit hopeful?

Ron ran a hand over her shoulders. Her top didn't cover her shoulders, just her breasts. Even most of her stomach was shown by the top.

"Wanna go somewhere today?" Ron asked, "I mean, instead of just staying here and having sex all day, do you want to go somewhere else?"

"I don't know. What do you want?" she asked, running a hand through her brown hair.

"Stay here," he growled.

She giggled and ran a hand through his hair, "Maybe we can go somewhere tomorrow."

"Maybe," Ron said, pushing his plate away.

She stood up and walked over to his bedroom. Ron followed her and they went in together. Ron suddenly had an idea.

"Let's get into the shower," he said.

Luna looked a bit surprised, but didn't argue. Keeping their clothes on, they got into the shower. Ron turned it on as high as it could go. Hot water began pouring down on them.

He could get used to this.

 _AWIA Headquarters, near Langley, Virginia_

Harry and Hermione walked back to their bunk room, now having memorized the intricate passages of the AWIA building. Harry collapsed onto his bed.

"Man, negotiations are difficult."

"Tell me about it, was it just me or did nothing really get done today?"

"Nope," Harry said, laughing, "that's diplomacy for you. Today and probably tomorrow too, we'll be spending hours just posturing and hi-how-are-you, just extrapolated to a long period of time. After that, we'll finally begin negotiating."

"It sounds like a terrible waste of time."

"That's diplomacy for you," Harry repeated, "things that should take seconds or minutes, take days."

Hermione rolled her eyes, lying on the bed, "It still seems to be wasting time. Why don't you just state what you want and just negotiate from there?"

Harry laughed, "It's just the way diplomacy has always been."

"We'll be spending New Year's here, right?" Hermione asked, feeling sleep coming on.

"Yup," Harry replied, "that day will probably be a break in negotiations."

"When will you be done?"

"Well, our return flight is on the 3rd so we better be done by then."

"Let's hope so. Do you really think there's going to be a global war?"

"Hermione," Harry said, sighing, "I don't _think_ so; I know so. There will be one. It's just a matter of choosing sides for other countries. Voldemort or the English Ministry's? We're hoping to get most of Europe, Russia, and America at least behind us. Voldemort's probably got Asia in his pocket; they've always leaned towards his sentiments."

"What about South America, Australia, and the others?"

"We thought Australia was going to be neutral, but maybe help us, but according to one of my penetration agents, the country's leaning more and more to Voldemort's side, thinking that it's gonna be the winning side. The others will be either neutral or inconsequential."

"I don't think so," Hermione said, "I think Africa would be important."

Harry laughed, "Give me a break, Hermione. Trust me, I know the intelligence business. Africa would be useless for either side."

"Have you ever been to Africa?" Hermione asked keenly.

"No. Why?"

"I have," she replied, "you're making a big mistake if you think Africa's going to be inconsequential. The wizards there are amazing. The French are nothing compared with the Africans."

Harry frowned, "Look, Hermione, I know they were great in ancient Egypt in everything, but that was 3000 years-"

Hermione cut him off, "Harry, I may not know much about the intelligence business, but I do know this. If you get Africa on your side, it will be a tremendous help to your war."

Harry stared up at the ceiling, "Okay, maybe you're right. I'll talk with Sonny and Ron about it when I get back home. But I can't make any promises."

She didn't answer. Harry thought she was purposefully ignoring him or something, but then he saw that she was peacefully asleep, making soft breathing noises. He smiled softly. That really was a cute picture. Shaking his head, he lay back down to go to sleep himself.

 **Monday, December 28, 2004**

 _St. Andrew's Train Station, Edinburgh, Scotland_

Lavender Weasley tapped her foot, as she waited for the morning train back to London.

She hadn't gone to Norway like she had told her husband. She had gone to Edinburgh, where she had met her lawyer. Lavender was exploring divorce possibilities. Her lawyer had told her that it was most beneficial for her to do it as she would be entitled to at least half of Ron's salary. That was good enough for her. When she came back home, she would tell him that she wanted this divorce.

Ron would probably be at work when she got home. Oh well, she could tell him when he got home. The train arrived.

She got onto it, picking up her briefcase that was full of the divorce papers. Finally, she would be able to move on with her life.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Ron walked into his office, noticing that there was a letter from Harry and one from Ben and Katie on his pile. He called for his secretary to get Sonny, so they could look over the letters together.

As he waited, Ron thought about the weekend he had just spent with Luna. It was final, in his mind. He wanted to divorce Lavender. He knew that he was probably gonna have to pay a lot of his salary to her, but that didn't bother him. Ron was tired of Lavender and her stupid, demanding ways. And Luna was a bonus for divorcing.

Sonny walked in, "Hey, Ron. What's new?"

 _How about-I'm screwing the girl who gets screwed by Voldemort?_ Ron thought.

"Not much," he said, "got these two letters from Harry and our dynamic duo in Iran."

Sonny picked them up and read through them.

"Sounds like Harry is just telling us that it's the usual diplomatic bullshit so far…" Sonny said, flipping to the Iran letter. "Well, it sounds like Ben and Katie have got some good stuff from ROBIN. He's gonna give us a transcript of everything that's said between the UIW guy and Voldemort."

"Yeah," Ron said, "not much to tell them, except for, 'Keep up the good work.'"

Sonny nodded, "Hey, Ron, where was Lavender at the party?"

"Busy," Ron replied, "she was leaving for Norway the next morning."

Sonny nodded wisely, but he didn't look like he believed Ron. Ron tried to give him his most convincing grin, but even he knew it wasn't really working.

"Okay, whatever you say, pal," Sonny said, "but remember, Harry and I are always here for you. All right?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Anyway, I'll send the replies back to both of them…whaddaya think of Harry and that new reporter?"

Ron laughed, "I'm putting three-to-one odds that they date."

"That high?"

That got them both laughing and Ron amended, "Okay, maybe two-to-one."

Sonny grinned and flashed Ron the thumbs-up, "That sounds about right. See you later, man."

"See ya, Sonny."

 _Weasley Home, London, England_

That night, Ron went home and saw that Lavender had not made dinner for him. Oh well, he wasn't planning on being with her too longer…

"Ron, we need to talk," Lavender said.

"I know," he replied.

They sat down on the couch and Lavender motioned that she wanted to go first, "Ron, I don't know to say this…but I don't love the new 'you' anymore. I don't want to be with you anymore. I want a divorce."

Ron was not really surprised.

"So do I," Ron said, "it was fun while it lasted, but I think we both need to move on."

"Yeah, I'm moving out today. My lawyer will contact yours tomorrow."

He sighed. "You think we could have ever made it work?"

She shrugged, "We were kids when we got married, Ron. Maybe it was the wrong decision."

"Was it?"

"I don't know."

"Well…"

"I'll get my stuff."

"Okay. See you later, I guess."

Lavender went and grabbed her already packed luggage and then put it outside. She came back in and went over to Ron, who stood up.

"One last time," she whispered, and put her lips on his. They kissed shortly and then broke apart.

"Thanks for the memories," she said.

Ron nodded weakly as she picked up her belongings and walked onto the street. He closed the door behind her. Ron went and sat back down on the couch, his mind going over the eight years (seven out of Hogwarts) which Lavender and he had spent together…graduation night, when they had lost their virginities to each other…marrying a year out of Hogwarts…vacationing in Majorca…fighting…and now, finally, ending.

He couldn't help it. He started to cry.

 **Tuesday, December 29, 2004**

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Sonny noticed immediately as he passed Ron in the DCI building that something was wrong. His eyes were swollen and he looked somewhat upset.

"What's up, Ron?" he asked.

"Come into my office," Ron replied.

Sonny followed him into the office, looking around at the room which was adorned with Chudley Cannons posters. He sat down and looked across the younger man. Sonny considered himself as a sort of father figure to Harry and Ron. Although he was only thirty-three, he felt that sort of affection towards them. They were like his kids, older brothers to Eddie.

"Lavender wants a divorce," Ron said.

Sonny nodded, knowing the best thing to do now was just to listen.

"The thing is…I want to get divorced too. I'm happy in that sense…but it's just so hard, knowing that I've thrown away those eight years. All those memories…are now useless. I guess that's what I'm more upset about than the actual divorce."

"It's all right, Ron," Sonny said. "You know, you can't think of those memories as wasted time or anything. Think of it as a chapter closing in your life. A new one's beginning. Focus on this. Remember the old, but focus on the new."

Ron nodded, wiping a tear out of his eye, "I guess you're right. I have to concentrate on the future. Concentrate on the DCI…working out the divorce cleanly…focus on the global war…"

"And there'll be time for your private life, too," Sonny said gently, "don't hold back your feelings, expecting something like this will happen again. Trust your heart. Trust your instincts."

"All right, thanks for the suggestions."

"By the way," Sonny said, winking, "tell me, how good is Luna in bed?"

Ron stared, shocked.

"Oh come on, don't you think the underwear left in your office was a good signal?"

"I thought she put her underwear back on…" Ron said.

"Nope, she conjured a clean pair. You just didn't notice. I guess she just kind of kicked it to the corner and when I came in to turn off the lights, after you had gone home, I noticed it. And when I looked at your schedule, and realized it was a Wednesday…well, I knew."

"Why didn't you say anything before?"

"I was waiting for you to say something first, but, after this, I just decided to go ahead and tell you."

Ron nodded and sank down in his chair, "I'm gonna ask her if she'll meet me tonight…I need something to help clear my mind. By the way…the answer to your question is: very good."

"I'll bet," Sonny said, laughing, "but I'll stick with Caroline."

"She's probably good too."

"Are you kidding? She could give _anybody_ a run for their money."

Ron laughed, "All right…I've got to get some work done."

"Okay, so do I. Talk to you later, buddy."

"Same here," Ron said.

He waited until Sonny was almost out of the room before calling out, "And one more thing, thanks a lot."

Sonny looked back and grinned.

 _UIW Headquarters, Bandar-e-Abbas, Iran_

Voldemort stood in front of the building in Bandar-e-Abbas. He was in a cloak but his red eyes were enough confirmation for the guards to let him in.

A Persian man was standing in front of him, evidently waiting for him.

"Hello," he said, in fluent English. "I am Ismael Khomeini. I will lead you to the Emir."

Voldemort nodded slightly.

"It will be necessary to blindfold you," Khomeini said, almost apologetically.

Voldemort shook it off, apparently not caring. He allowed himself to be blindfolded. It didn't matter. His eyes could see through blindfolds.

He pretended to stumble here and there as he followed Khomeini. Voldemort memorized the directions. He would need them just in case he ever needed to get rid of the Emir.

Khomeini finally reached a large mahogany door and whispered a password in Farsi. Voldemort's brain immediately translated it to 'Kingpin.' Well, that was an interesting password.

The door opened and Khomeini took off the blindfold.

The Emir was a large man, a good thirty pounds overweight. He had indulged in food for too long. He also had a fondness for American women, but this was not known to many except for his select inner circle. Luckily, Voldemort's most important informant in the UIW, SOLDIER, was one of the select few. Malfoy and Bellatrix were currently working on an idea to infiltrate a woman into the organization, ostensibly as a prostitute for the Emir, but actually to gather information for them. It never occurred to Voldemort that the same idea was being used on him.

"Your Highness," Voldemort said, biting his tongue. He didn't like talking to someone as if they were higher than him.

"Lord Voldemort," the Emir said in good English, "sit down."

Voldemort sat down. Khomeini was still there, taking notes. Voldemort didn't mind. He knew that Arabs and Farsis always insisted on having a note-taker for any important meetings.

"We are very grateful to Mister Malfoy, Mister Lestrange, and Missus Lestrange for their help in training our terrorist newcomers," the Emir said.

"Anything we can do to help. After all, we do have the same enemy," said Voldemort airily. "My people tell me that your men are eager to learn and quick to adapt."

The Emir smiled proudly, "Allah smiles upon our people."

Voldemort smiled back, but he was silently laughing at the stupidity of these people. Didn't they know that there was no religion except power?

"I don't have too much time," Voldemort said, getting straight to business. He knew that normal diplomatic posturing took days, but he didn't _have_ days.

The Emir nodded for him to continue.

"You know that a global war is going to happen soon. My side will be facing Harry Potter and the English Ministry. Sides are being taken. Russia is most likely going to bend to Potter, my sources tell me. America, of course, will be on England's side. So will many countries in Europe. We _need_ you. We will get slaughtered without your help. You hate the English Ministry and their people. You hate Americans. We will be killing them and after winning, _ruling_ them. Isn't that what you want? Don't you want to drive those arrogant faces into the dirt?"

The Emir smiled, "You speak beautifully, my friend. You know this has been my wish all along. I pledge the wizards of Iran behind you. The government will bend to my will with a few well-placed threats. The rest of the Middle East will also fall into line behind us, except for Israel."

"Israel does not matter," said Voldemort, knowing very well that Israel _did_ matter. But he couldn't get Iran and the Arab countries to be behind him if he got Israel. Israel was probably going to be neutral, but one of his sources told him that Tom van Damm, Weasley's chief of staff, was planning a trip to Jerusalem some time in the new year.

"May Allah bless our partnership."

"And may we win the war," Voldemort added.

"We will, my friend," the Emir said, baring his teeth, "we will."


	6. A New Year

Hi, this chapter is shorter and fluffier but hope you guys like it anyway. We'll be back to the world of war soon enough!

 **Chapter Six-A New Year**

 **Thursday, December 31, 2004**

 _AWIA Headquarters, near Langley, Virginia_

Harry made his final notes of the day and put them into the letter to Ron and Sonny. He gave the letter to Hedwig and watched her soar away into the night. The negotiations had finally started picking up. Harry expected to have an agreement by the 2nd, just in time for the return trip.

It was about one o'clock in the night. Today was the last day of the year. He sighed. Another year of happiness in his job. Another year of little happiness in his personal life.

He looked over at the still-sleeping form of Hermione Granger. She really was beautiful…she was biting her lip, even though she was asleep. Harry really liked when she did that. It looked cute. He walked over to stand above her.

Looking at her eyes and deciding she was asleep, he ran a hand across her bare arm. She shivered in her dream, but didn't wake up. She was wearing a thin white nightgown and Harry couldn't take his eyes off her. Hermione simply looked…gorgeous.

He turned away from her. He had to go to bed. He'd have one more session of intense negotiations today, before they broke off at four o'clock. They would then have a New Year's Eve party here with the other members of the AWIA. Harry collapsed back onto his bed, his thoughts concentrating mainly on a certain brown-eyed girl, lying only a few feet away from him.

 _Weasley Home, London, England_

It was morning in England and Sonny had given all the workers in the DCI the day off. They would also have tomorrow, New Year's Day, off. Ron was lying in his bed, Luna's naked body next to him.

He wasn't planning on doing anything else today. Maybe eating a little bit…drinking a little eggnog…but other than that…nothing but sex. Ron ran his hand along her forehead.

She made a purring noise like a well-fed cat. It was breathtakingly sexy.

"Wake up, baby," he whispered.

Luna woke up and she smiled at Ron, "That's the best face I've ever woken up to."

"Same here."

She began lightly tracing her hands across his stomach, "Er…just wondering…are we ever, you know, going to go on a real date or something?"

Ron sighed and leaned back against the bed, still letting her do wondrous things. "I dunno...I mean, Voldemort would realize that you had been messing around on him and that asset would close down for us…and that information is really important to Harry and the rest of the DCI."

She stopped moving her hands and looked firmly into his eyes, "Ron, I don't want to keep this a secret. I really, really like you. I want to start a _real_ relationship, not just come here every day and get screwed."

Ron closed his eyes, "I'm going to have to talk about it to Sonny and Harry. Baby…I understand, we just have to be careful."

"Okay," she said, and smiled up at him. "All I want to know is that you want to."

He grasped her chin firmly and stared

 _Hotel Paradise, Tehran, Iran_

Ben and Katie were going over the information ROBIN had provided them. His friend that had seen the meeting had written the transcript down in the diary, and true to his word, ROBIN had delivered it to them yesterday. They hadn't had much time to look over it yet.

Katie finished it first, and playfully ran her hands in Ben's hair, waiting for him to finish. When he did, they both looked at each other.

"The Middle East is in Voldemort's pocket."

"We'd better send this transcript to Sonny. They're probably taking the day off up there."

Katie grinned, "Yeah…but I think we can take the day off too…"

Ben smiled back, and ran a hand across her neck, "I love you."

"I love you too."

Ben kissed her, his slight stubble tickling her chin. She moaned, as she ran her fingers through his hair.

"Ben?" she said, when they stopped.

"Yes, honey?"

"I want to make love with you."

Ben's head snapped around. Had he heard her correctly? She seemed to be smiling at his confounded expression.

"I've thought about it…" she said, "and I want to tonight. New Year's Eve."

Ben leaned his head against the backboard of the bed, thinking. They hadn't gone too far in their explorations of each other. They had done some tongue-on-tongue action and Ben had once 'accidentally' run his hand across her breast, but nothing more than that.

"Er…are you sure?" Ben asked.

"Yes," she said.

He nodded. He wanted this as much as she did.

"Okay," he said, "I'll be there. I want to go into town and get a few books."

"Books on what?" she asked, winking devilishly.

"Not _those_ kind of books," he said, playfully hitting her on the arm, "I meant, books for my parents. They're interested in history so I figured I might as well get something for them, while I'm here."

"Come back at ten o'clock. Don't eat anything," Katie said, "I'll be waiting."

Ben nodded and repeated, "I'll be there."

 _McLeod Home, Greenwich, England_

 _Tap. Tap._

Sonny angrily looked over at the window. It was Dante. Perfect timing.

"Sorry, babe," he said to Caroline.

He went over and let the owl in. Dante dropped the letter, and seemingly understanding that he wasn't welcome, he flew back out the window.

"Do you have to read that letter?" his wife asked, getting up out of the bed, arms crossed over a wispy gown.

Sonny sucked in his breath, "I'll read it later. I want to concentrate on you."

Caroline giggled, "I love when we give Eddie off to his friends."

"So do I," Sonny growled, seizing her mouth with his lips.

She moaned into his mouth, "I love you, Sonny."

"And I love you."

 _Hotel Paradise, Tehran, Iran_

It was ten o'clock in Iran, and Ben, true to his word, had come back to the hotel. He entered and saw that it was empty. Surprised, he pulled off his coat and hung it on the rack.

The room was dark, dimmed by candlelight.

Then, he saw her.

She was dressed in a filmy black nightgown that barely covered everything indecent up. The nightgown only came up to about four inches below her waist and it was the most scandalous thing Ben had ever seen Katie in.

"Hello, Ben," she said, almost calmly.

"You look beautiful," he said, walking over to her and running a hand across her perfect neck.

"Let's eat first," she whispered.

He nodded. She had ordered up room service and they ate the Italian meal, slowly yet almost hurriedly. Neither wanted to speed anything up, but Ben felt himself aching for her. From the longing expression on her face, she seemed to be undergoing the same exquisite torture he was undergoing.

At ten-thirty, they both pushed their plates away. Ben led the way into the bed and they both lay down. He was still dressed in his collared shirt and dress slacks.

Ben was about to start kissing her, but he stopped when he saw the nervous look on her face.

"I'm not forcing you into anything," he whispered gently, "if you don't want to do this, Katie, you don't have to."

"Ben, I want to," she said, "I just haven't done this before."

He nodded. "Well let's make it special then."

Ben began unbuttoning his shirt. She watched wordlessly as he took it off. He was about to take off his pants too when she grabbed his hands and stopped him.

"Let me play with your chest first," she said, smiling a bit.

Ben smiled back as she began running her hands across the hairs of his chest. His abs were rock-hard from years of weight lifting and Katie seemed to enjoy kissing them.

Acting on the nod she gave him, he slowly unzipped his pants and threw them off to the side. Now he was only in his boxers and socks.

"Want to take off your socks?" she asked, grinning at him.

Ben laughed. He had forgotten. He quickly pulled off his socks and they joined his pants and shirt on the floor.

"Do you want me to take off my gown first or you to take off your boxers first?" Katie asked.

Ben looked into her eyes, sinking himself deep into their beauty and hopeful happiness.

"Same time," he said.

She nodded, and without missing a beat, pulled the nightgown off the top of her head. Her eyes only left his when the nightgown covered it.

Ben slowly pulled his boxers off too and soon they were both naked.

He looked at her breasts and sucked in his breath, "They're beautiful."

"Touch me."

He obeyed. This was going to be a most wonderful night.

 _AWIA Headquarters, near Langley, Virginia_

Harry drank his wine, grinning at the revelry going on around him. Several of the AWIA members were already drunk and the partying was getting loud and boisterous. A few people had already set off some fireworks.

He looked at Hermione, who was standing next to him, drinking a small wine, "Nice party, huh?"

"Yeah," Hermione replied.

She was dressed in the same garb she had worn on the flight in. Harry loved the way light blue looked on her. Combined with the dark night, it had an almost heavenly effect on her.

"New Year's in ten minutes!" Frodo Wood announced.

Several people were finding coworkers, getting ready for a New Year's Eve kiss. Harry suddenly felt very self-conscious. He looked at Hermione, who seemed to be staring off in the distance.

"Hey…uh…Hermione?"

"Yes, Harry?" she asked, turning towards him. Her hair flew behind her, the curls bouncing gently. Damn, he liked her hair.

"Since…you know…it's New Year's Eve and everything…" he started, "well…I…was wondering…ifyouwouldliketokissmewhenitturnstwelve."

"What?"

"I was wondering if you would like to kiss when it turns twelve o'clock," Harry said, sighing.

She smiled back, her eyes shining, "I'd love to."

Harry felt his heart skip a beat. He smiled nervously at her as they waited for the clock to turn to twelve. _Dammit, why is that stupid thing moving so slowly_? he thought absently.

"Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one…Happy New Year!"

Harry leaned down and their lips met. He felt something explode in his head. This was wonderful…this was better than any kiss he had ever experienced… Unconsciously, he put his arms around her waist. Her arms flew around his neck. Their kiss continued and Harry could taste her lip gloss. It tasted like strawberry…he liked strawberry. Harry began running one of his hands through her curly locks.

Neither of them was ready to stop. Harry pulled her face closer, her light blue jacket brushing up against his forest green sweater.

Harry finally had to stop to get some air. They both leaned back and looked at each other.

"Wow…" Harry managed.

"Yeah."

They both turned and looked around. Several couples were still kissing.

"I love your sweater," she said absent-mindedly.

"Thanks," he said.

Nervously, he put his arm around her shoulder. She relaxed in his grip. They both looked upward, jumbled thoughts racing around their heads like comets in the night sky.


	7. First Date

Thanks for all the reviews and everything pouring in. It really means a ton to me. Sorry for the slow update as well, been traveling for work and will try to update quicker next time and as you all know I'm a slave to reviews/sharing. Thanks so much!

 **Chapter Seven-First Date**

 **Friday, January 1, 2005**

 _Hotel Paradise, Tehran, Iran_

Ben woke up and found that the space next to him was empty. Sitting up quickly, his eyes roamed the room to find Katie. He relaxed when she saw that she was just leaning against the wall, dressed in her nightgown from the night before, apparently waiting for him to wake up.

She smiled at him and came over and sat on the edge of the bed. Ben lay back down on the bed.

"Last night…was amazing," he said.

"Yes, it was," she whispered.

Ben was surprised as she straddled his hips and leaned over on top of him. She kissed his forehead, and her breasts, though covered by the nightgown, were lowered deliciously in front of his face.

"Mmmm…" he groaned.

Katie abruptly rolled off him and when she heard his grumbling, she laughed, "Come on, Ben, we have work to do. We can't do this all the time."

"But we haven't got a letter back from Sonny," Ben pointed out, "so what else are we supposed to do?"

"Not that," she said, laughing. "I'm not enough of a morning person for that."

Accepting his defeat, Ben rolled out of the bed and pulled on his boxers.

"I've got to go shower," he said.

"I've ordered breakfast for myself. What do you want?"

"You," he replied, but then winked, "okay, I'm just kidding. I'll have toast."

Ben went into the shower, replaying the steamy events of last night in his head. That would be something he could play over and over in his mind for the rest of his life…

 _AWIA Headquarters, near Langley, Virginia_

Harry was sitting in his own bed thinking. Hermione was still asleep and he was using it as an opportunity to think. Last night had been wonderful. That kiss had been more amazing than _anything_ he had ever done. That indescribable feeling that he had gotten in his brain and his heart was something he had never felt before.

After their New Year's Eve kiss, Harry and Hermione had walked back to their bunks, holding hands, and Harry had kissed her on the cheek before going to bed, but he had been too tired to actually _think_ about what had happened. Now he was getting his chance. There weren't going to be any negotiations today.

Yes, he liked her. A lot, even. But did he want to date her? He sighed. The pain of breaking up with his last girlfriend had sworn him off women for a while. She had broken up with him because of her anger over his inability to spend time with her. _Who's to say the same thing won't happen with Hermione?_ But another part of Harry's mind told him that that was no reason to _not_ go out with her. There was no harm in asking and seeing if anything came of it. _But what if you get too involved with her? And then she dumps you? Could you handle that?_ He looked over at his owl, sitting in her cage next to his bed.

He stroked her white feathers and muttered, "What should I do, Hedwig?"

Hedwig, of course, gave no answer, but gave him a little affectionate pinch on his fingers as if to say, _Either way I'll still love you_.

"Thanks, Hedwig," Harry said, rubbing the head of his pretty owl.

His mind returned to the problem at hand. If he dated her and then broke up with her, the effect on his mind could affect _national security_. He couldn't risk the lives of his countrymen over something like this. But another little voice in his head whispered: _Why don't you do something for yourself once, Harry? Stop worrying about other people and focus on yourself. You're twenty-four years old and you haven't had a girlfriend since you were_ nineteen! _Come on…and you know that you really like this girl_.

"I should talk to Sonny," Harry announced to nobody in particular.

Both sides of his mind seemed to be happy with this idea and Harry was finally able to quiet his thoughts. He looked back at the sleeping form of Hermione and smiled. She looked like an angel.

 _McLeod Home, Greenwich, England_

Sonny was sitting at his breakfast table, reading the letter that Ben and Katie had sent him, also trying to ignore the truck sounds his eight year old was making.

"Come on, Eddie, hush up," Caroline said, "Daddy's trying to read."

"Daddy's _always_ reading," Eddie announced importantly, "he's _never_ doing anything else."

"You have no idea what other things he can do," Caroline whispered, so that only Sonny could hear. Sonny smirked.

"Eddie, I'm sorry…this letter's important."

"It's New Year's Day! Nobody works today," Eddie informed his father.

"I know," Sonny said, "I just have to see if this is important enough to have to go talk to Ron about."

"Uncle Ron?" Eddie asked, brightening up, "is he going to come here?"

"Probably," Sonny said, laughing at Eddie calling Ron his uncle. Even though Sonny thought of Harry and Ron as his sons, Eddie thought of them as his nice, older uncles.

"Awesome! Maybe he'll bring me a present," Eddie said.

"Don't ask for one," Caroline told him, "you know that's rude."

"Yeah, yeah," Eddie said, and turned back to the comics.

Sonny finished the letter, "Yeah, I better signal Ron. This is really important. He'll probably be over here in about ten minutes."

"Should I fix him anything?"

"Just ask him when he gets here."

About eight minutes later, Ron appeared in Sonny's living room, carrying something with him.

"Hey, Sonny, Caroline," Ron said, nodding towards them, "where's Eddie?"

"Right here," he said importantly.

"I've got something for you," Ron said, whipping out what he was holding behind his back.

"Wow! Awesome!" Eddie said and ripped open the present, "A miniature Quidditch field! Thanks, Uncle Ron!"

"No problem," said Ron, laughing as he watched as Eddie jumped up and down, holding the magical miniature field.

"What do you say?" Caroline asked.

"Oh yeah…Thank you, Uncle Ron!" Eddie said, hugging him around the middle.

"You're welcome," Ron said, smiling with a far-off look as Eddie skipped out of the room.

"Can I get you anything?" Caroline asked him.

"No, thanks," Ron said, "so, what's the deal, Sonny?"

Caroline surreptitiously left the room. She knew that she wasn't supposed to listen into their conversations.

Ron finished reading the letter, "Damn. An agreement, then?"

"Yeah," Sonny said, sighing as he settled into his plush couch, "I'm going to have to inform your dad tomorrow. I hope Harry's doing well with the Americans."

"Yeah, it seems like they're just finalizing right now."

"Good…say, did you read the last part Ben wrote? About him and Katie _finally_ getting together?" Sonny asked.

"Yeah," Ron said, grinning, "they kissed on Christmas. Cute. I, of course, was doing other things…"

"Speaking of which, how's that going?"

"Pretty good…we spent most of yesterday together."

Sonny laughed, "Same here, except with Caroline."

"I was pulling on my pants to go and make some waffles when I felt the heat from the golden coin. So I told Luna I had to go here, grabbed the Quidditch field set I wanted to give to Eddie, and came over here…"

"Nice," Sonny observed, "anyway, you think we should tell Ben and Katie just to sit tight in Iran?"

"Well, now that they're together, I don't think they'll complain too much," Ron said.

"True," Sonny said, "well, I guess you'd better get back to your golden Luna."

Ron winked at Sonny and then Apparated.

 **Monday, January 4, 2005**

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Harry dropped his clothes off at Devon's house for her to clean, before walking to the headquarters of the DCI. He had finally returned to England, armed with the agreement from America. Hermione was touring other parts of the DCI with Melissa Watkins, their official PR person.

After entering the building and passing the security checks, he headed straight to Sonny's office.

"Harry," he said, nodding as his DDO walked in, "I heard about the agreement."

"Yeah, it was easy…load of boredom, but I got it done."

"Good work," the DDCI said, and tossed him the letter from Ben and Katie, "read it and weep."

Harry read through it quickly and then put it back on the desk, "Well, that's not exactly surprising. The Middle East is in his pocket…now he just has to convince China and India and the rest of East Asia will fall into line…So, how about Ben and Katie, eh?"

"Yeah, not surprising, either," Sonny said, "too bad I thought that they weren't going to get together until next year. I lost ten Galleons in a bet with your secretary."

"Which one?"

"Mark."

Harry snorted, "Why don't you dock it out of his paycheck to make up for the loss?"

"Good idea," Sonny laughed.

"Listen, while I was in America, Hermione and I were talking about this global war thing-she knows all about it, she made an agreement with the American Minister that she wouldn't divulge any of it, except generalities-and she mentioned Africa. I told her that it was the position of the DCI and the Ministry that Africa was irrelevant."

"Right…go on."

"She said that she'd been to Africa and that African wizards were something else. She also said that we're making a big mistake if we don't get Africa on our side," Harry added, "look, sir, I don't know for sure, I've never been there. But maybe we could explore this possibility…?"

Sonny nodded, "I'll ask the Minister about it, but he'll probably approve. Think we should send, say, the Zabinis to Johannesburg? Take them off probation?"

"They're not the _Zabinis_ yet," Harry reminded him, "they're only fiancés right now."

"Whatever, they're getting married in April…it's all the same."

"Well, if Mr. Weasley approves, then I think we should send them in."

"Another cute couple, eh?"

"Husband-wife teams are very good in the field," Harry pointed out.

"True…so, tell me, how is Hermione working out? Not bothering you too much? Behaving herself? Because if she isn't, I can always get the _Prophet_ to get her out of here."

"That's the problem, sir," Harry said, sighing.

"Harry, how long have we known each other?"

"Seven years."

"Don't call me 'sir'…I may outrank you, but you're a far better wizard then me and we're friends."

"Okay, Sonny, sorry," Harry said. "The thing is…I kissed her on New Year's Eve."

Harry thought he saw Sonny's eyes dancing happily for a moment, but within a second they were steely blue again, "Go on."

"It was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. I just felt an _explosion_ in my heart, my mind, everything. Warmth all over. We held hands on the flight in, but we never talked about it again. We held hands again after the kiss. The past couple days it's been kind of awkward since that kiss…"

"Why?"

"Because I'm not sure whether I want to date her or not," Harry explained. "Look, I like her a lot. I think she may like me. But if we start dating…and another Sandra thing comes up with her-"

"Harry," Sonny said, shaking Harry's shoulders, "forget Sandra. Don't ruin the rest of your life because Sandra dumped you. This is not Sandra; this is Hermione. She's different."

"But still…if we break up; let's say she dumps me-then I'll be depressed, and that'll _affect_ my work! I can't let _national security_ issues get messed up because I've got women problems!" Harry said, using all the arguments his own mind had gone over a thousand times.

"Harry. Listen to me, carefully. I look at you like a son. I'm only nine years older than you, but you feel like a son to me. We're good friends. For once, focus on your own life, _not work_. Harry, sometimes you have to start doing stuff for yourself, not just your country."

"But-"

"No buts," Sonny said firmly. "I remember when I was twenty-two and I met Caroline. I was in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, a trainee Auror. I was afraid that if I messed up my relationship, it would mess up my work. But finally, I realized that I couldn't always put myself last. A few times in life, you have to be selfish. This is one of those times. Ask Hermione out. And if I know you, even if you break up with her, there's no way it will seriously affect your work."

Harry nodded. Maybe Sonny was right…his whole life, he had put the needs of others in front of the needs of himself. Maybe once, he should put his needs first.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," Sonny said, "by the way, Ron got divorced from Lavender."

"Wow!" Harry said. "Is he with Luna, then?"

"Well, Lavender moved out and everything…the official divorce will take a while. But yeah, Luna pretty much lives with him. On Wednesdays, she has to go and do her session with Voldemort, but other than that, she's pretty much lived with him for the last week or so."

"Cool…I guess I'll go talk to him about that."

"Okay," Sonny agreed, "but first, you're going to find Hermione and ask her out."

Harry grinned, "You got it."

 _Fundamentalist Hotel, Tehran, Iran_

Katie lay her head on the sleeping Ben's chest. She had just woken up after they had had sex for the second time. The past couple days they had spent walking around, holding hands, and kissing a few times, but this was the first day since New Year's that they had had intercourse.

She smiled as she thought about Ben. So strong…so nimble…and amazingly gentle. He was like that in other aspects of life, too. One reason that she always liked getting sent on missions with him was that she trusted her life in his hands. He was great with a wand and a good fighter. She had been on a few other missions with other guys, like Dafoe and Finch-Fletchley, but she had just never felt that chemistry with them.

She had completed over twenty-five missions with Ben and she knew him as well as she knew anybody. They had previously been close friends…and well, now, she thought with a smile, they were much, much more.

Katie knew that she loved Ben. She loved his composure, his charisma, his shining eyes, his tender hand. And she now knew that he loved her too. It was such an empowering feeling, it almost felt like being drunk. Well, she had had a little too much alcohol before they had made love, but she wasn't sure whether that was the primary reason behind her drunken feeling.

She ran a hand across his smooth chest. She knew that they would get incessant teasing when they got back home. But that didn't matter…she was one of the best intelligence officers in the world and she was proud of it. She was also in love with the man sleeping beside her, and if anybody begged to differ, they would be treated to the nice spectacle of losing their most private parts.

Katie smiled serenely and lay her head back against his chin. Sonny had told them to just sit tight in Iran. She didn't mind at all.

 _Ministry of Magic, London, England_

Sonny McLeod waited for the Minister's secretary to screen him in. It was very boring to wait for Mr. Weasley, but he _did_ have a lot of people to meet. Finally, she waved him in, after a few lobbyists left the room.

He walked into the office and nodded at Tom van Damm, who was working on a paper on his desk. Sonny knew that that was just for show. Van Damm would be listening the whole time to everything he said.

"Arthur."

"Sonny…what brings you here?"

"Harry wants to open up negotiations with Africa," Sonny said, "South Africa is pretty much the head of the continent, and he wants to send a couple of our field officers down there to conduct intelligence and also negotiate to bring them onto our side in the war."

"Africa?" van Damm asked, "they can't do anything."

"Harry is convinced that they will be of use to us and I agree that it can't hurt. Look, our field officers can tell us if they're of any value to us and we'll proceed from there."

"Field officers conducting negotiations with a government?" Minister Weasley asked, with raised eyebrows.

"The pair we would send are very experienced with this kind of thing… they're as good as me or Harry."

"Very well," Arthur said, "I authorize it. God knows that we need all the able bodies we can get."

"Yes, sir."

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Blaise Zabini rubbed his sweaty brown hair out of his eyes and looked sarcastically up at Sonny, "You mean you want us to get away from this exciting desk job?"

Sonny closed his eyes. Blaise had sharp, biting sense of humor and he just had to ignore it. Hannah Abbott, his gorgeous fiancé, loved it, so Sonny figured that it had served some purpose for him.

"Yes," Sonny replied, "Harry wants to explore the Africa possibilities. He thinks they could help us whenever that war does start."

Hannah looked up at him, "So, basically, you want us to stop grading boring reports from agents and go out onto the field and conduct negotiations?"

"Pretty much. You would gather intelligence on the capabilities of the Africans and assess their helpfulness. You would also open a dialogue up with their government."

"Gee, Mr. C, where can I sign up?" Blaise asked.

"Muggle flight for you…your flight will be taking off tomorrow."

"Why can't we just Apparate?"

"I hate sending _any_ of my people Apparating cross-country," Sonny said, "it's not worth the risk."

"You let Harry Apparate cross-country," Hannah pointed out.

"Yes, but Harry's Harry. I can't really order him around."

"Oh, but you can order us around?"

"Blaise, quit the wounded act," Sonny said, "you'll be on a flight, tomorrow, to Johannesburg. When you start negotiations, you'll be talking with the South African government. They're the most important country on the continent."

"All right," Blaise said, "this is cleared by Harry, right? I mean, technically, the DDO is the only one who has the power to send us on missions."

"Harry's the one who came up with the idea and I suggested you two. I also told Mr. Weasley that you two would be fine representatives of his government," Sonny said, "don't prove me wrong for putting faith in you."

"Don't worry about it," Hannah said, her sea-blue eyes shining, "I'll keep Blaise in line."

"Yeah, whatever," Blaise said, running a hand through his fiancé's hair.

Sonny smiled, "Just get the job done."

"We will."

Harry walked into Ron's office, noticing the improved disposition on his friend's face.

"Hey, Ron, I heard about your divorce."

"Yeah," Ron said, "I'm not too upset about it. I had a talk with Sonny and I'm all right…and Luna's more than adequate."

"I'll bet," Harry said, laughing, "listen, I want to tell you something."

"What?"

"Hermione and I kissed on New Year's Eve."

Ron started grinning, "Really?"

"Yup, and I'm gonna ask her out after I leave your office."

"Whoa…nice, Harry!" Ron said, "I'm glad you're _finally_ going out with someone after your long sabbatical."

Harry laughed, "I just hope this one can last long."

"Who knows? Maybe it'll last forever."

"Maybe," Harry said. "I don't know if that's what I want but we'll see."

Ron shrugged, "Just wait it out; see what happens…"

"Yeah," Harry said, before adding, "hey, are you ever going to, you know, make Luna your 'official' girlfriend?"

"She was asking me about that a few days ago."

"Yeah? What did you say?"

"I told her that I would like to…I just didn't know if that would compromise getting intelligence from her from Voldemort. We'd also have to put security on her…"

"You're right," Harry said, "I think we should probably keep it secret for now. Sooner or later, when it benefits us, we can reveal that."

"Okay…so, why don't you get out of here? Go ask your girl out."

Harry grinned, "Wish me luck."

"Good luck…although, you won't need it."

"I hope so."

Harry shook hands with Ron and then left the room, heading straight to his office, stopping by his secretary's office first.

"Mark, can you find Hermione? Tell her to come into my office."

"Okay."

Mark left and Nicole said, "Harry, Sonny left a message with me. Mr. Weasley approved the Africa deal and they're sending Eli and Hannah to Africa tomorrow."

"After I finish with Hermione, send them into my office."

"Yes, sir."

Harry went into his own office to wait for Hermione. He really had no idea what he was going to say. It had been a long time since he had done this. _Just do it nice and straight-forward. Don't beat around the bush._

The door opened and Hermione walked in. She smiled weakly at him and sat down. Harry liked the way her hair was done up, tied in a small, elegant knot at the top of her head.

"Hermione, we need to talk."

"I know."

"Look, let me go first," Harry said. "I've been an idiot. After we kissed on New Year's Eve, I had no idea how to react. I've been trying to avoid you…but now, I realize that I can't do this. I really like you, Hermione."

She smiled back, her eyes shining a little bit, "I really like you, too, Harry."

"Do you want to go out with me?"

"Yes."

"Okay, are you free tonight?" He gulped.

"Yeah," she said serenely, smiling beatifically.

"How about I pick you up at seven?"

She nodded and laughed. "Now was that so hard?"

Harry felt embarrassed, but that was nothing to the way he felt when Hermione pulled his face towards hers and touched his lips to her own, gently kissing him.

"I like kissing you," Harry said dreamily.

"So do I," she whispered back, "well, I've got to go home now. So, you'll be there at seven?"

"Count on it."

Hermione left the room, leaving Harry with a blissful expression on his face. Damn, she was an amazing woman. She was so beautiful…so naturally pretty…and her kisses were electric, even when they were just mere touches.

Without knocking, Blaise and Hannah strolled into Harry's office. He laughed. That certainly wasn't a surprise.

"Well, if it isn't my Derisive Duo," Harry said, using his pet nickname for them.

Blaise rolled his eyes and sat down across from Harry. Hannah sat on his lap.

"Don't beat around the bush, do you two?" Harry asked, smirking.

Blaise kissed the back of his fiancé's neck, "You better believe it. So what do you want? I want to go home and have some fun."

"I just wanted to wish you both good luck. This is potentially an important mission. I know that you don't get a chance to get out into the field much any more, because of your age-"

"Back off there, Harry," Hannah said, "we're only twenty-eight."

"Well…you're sort of semi-retired from constant field work," Harry said, smiling. He knew he had baited them and won. They would be even more determined now.

"Listen, Harry, we can do this. We're only a year older than Benny, and he's your star field officer."

"I know," Harry said, "but you guys are the all-stars, you're in the Hall of Fame. By the way, Ben and Katie are dating."

"Good," Blaise observed, "I was going to use the Imperius on them if they didn't hurry up with that."

Harry laughed, "Whatever. Just do this properly. We're counting on you…"

"Okay," Hannah said, "don't worry about it. We can handle it."

"I know," he said, "I just want you to take it seriously."

"What, are you accusing us of fooling around? _Us_?" Blaise grasped his heart, as if mortally wounded.

Harry rolled his eyes, "You have been known to do things excessively…"

"Oh, please…those things were unimportant," Hannah said, waving it off.

"Yeah, yeah," Harry said, "just focus."

"We will," Blaise said, shaking his head, "you know we can do it."

"You can…and by the way, if you pull this off cleanly, I might entertain your request for more field action and less desk work."

They nodded. They both knew that the long desk work had been sort of a punishment for screwing around with Turkey's internal politics on their last mission. They were the best at what they did (Ben and Katie were sort of their protégés), but occasionally Harry had to remind them to focus on the mission. Hopefully, with an incentive in mind, they would be completely focused.

'Hopefully' being the key word.

 _Hotel Paradise Tehran, Iran_

Ben opened his eyes and stretched his arms. Katie was lying next to him, asleep. Man, that second time had been almost as good as the first. Well, the first would probably _always_ be the most special in his mind.

He picked up the _Daily Prophet_ , which he had been getting delivered to them. Nothing really interesting had been in the papers so far, but he browsed them anyway. Hmmm…they were saying that the most common name for wizard boy babies last year had been Harry, for the twenty-third straight year. He laughed. _Everybody_ named their kid after Harry. For girls, the most popular name had been Lavender. Interesting. Babies…

Suddenly, his blood turned to ice. He turned around and shook Katie awake.

"Katie, did you use protection?"

"W-w-what is it, Ben?"

"Did you use protection so we wouldn't have a kid?"

She opened her eyes and snorted, "Do you really think I didn't take care of everything? _Of course_ I took a protection potion both times. Don't worry about it…"

Ben relaxed. Whew…that was a close one. Much as he loved Katie, he did _not_ think they were ready to be parents. He closed his eyes and settled down next to Katie. Time to sleep.

 _Potter Home, London, England_

Harry looked at himself critically in the mirror.

"No, this isn't right," he grumbled, throwing the green sweater aside.

His entire wardrobe was lying on his bed and he had tried just about everything in there. He didn't know whether to dress casually or formally.

"Dammit, this is so darn complicated."

When he finally found the right sweater, he appraised himself self-critically in the mirror.

"I dress Muggle-ish too much," Harry muttered to himself. And it was true. Robes were nice and everything, but he preferred Muggle clothing. Of course, when he went to official things (like state dinners), he would wear his robes.

Devon gave him the thumbs-up and Harry smiled back at her, "Just throw everything on my bed back into my wardrobe. You don't have to bother putting it in properly."

"Yes, sir."

"It's Harry, remember?"

"Okay, Harry," she said, smiling.

Harry walked out the door into the brisk air. Hermione only lived a short distance away from him in a Muggle part of London, so he was going to walk over there. He headed left and up the street. About two minutes later, he reached her apartment building.

He walked in and she was waiting for him in the lobby. Harry sucked in his breath. She was _dazzling_. She was wearing a spaghetti-strapped yellow top and a short denim skirt.

"Hi, Harry," she said, "you look nice."

"You look amazing," he whispered back breathily.

She smiled awkwardly at him, "Well, where are we going?"

"I don't know this area that well but had a few options. You have anything in mind?"

"There's this new Indian restaurant I want you to try," she replied, "it's not that far from here."

"Cool, let's go. You can lead the way."

They walked out of the apartment building. The doorman smiled at them and surreptitiously winked at Harry. He grinned back. The doorman's message was clear, "She's a catcj; make sure you don't lose her." _I won't_ , he told himself.

As they walked, she abruptly started shivering. Well, it _was_ a cold night, he thought.

He reached over and put a hand on her bare arm.

"That feels good," she murmured, "don't stop."

Harry rubbed her arms, the warmth spreading all over her body. He didn't stop until they reached the restaurant. TASTE OF INDIA, the sign proclaimed. They walked in, Harry's hand brushing against hers.

"Table for two?" a bearded Indian man asked.

"Yes, please."

He lead them to a secluded table. The restaurant was decently full, a few people scattered here and there. They sat down and he lit a candle at the table.

"A waiter will be back in a few minutes for your order."

"He's the owner of the store," Hermione told Harry, after the man had left.

Harry nodded and looked down at the menu. For a second or two, Harry was sure he had traveled into another country. He didn't understand _any_ of the words.

"Er…Hermione? I can't read this."

"That's okay," she said, laughing softly, "They just use Indian words for the food. I'll explain it for you, if you'd like."

"How many times have you been here?" he asked her.

"Twice," she replied, "the food is fabulous."

"Why don't you order what's good and we'll just share it?"

She smiled at him, "Okay."

"May I take your order?" a young boy of about sixteen asked them.

"Yes," she said, "I'd like a _chai_ to drink. What do you want, Harry?"

"What's chai?"

"A really good tea."

"I'll have that too," he said.

"Okay, two chais," the waiter said, "and for your meal?"

"We'll take two naans, an order of butter chicken and an order of tandoori chicken," Hermione said.

"Two naans, butter chicken, tandoori chicken, and two chais," the waiter repeated, confirming the order. When Hermione nodded, he took the two menus from them and headed towards the kitchen.

"I hope you know what you're doing," he said.

"I do. This food is the best in the world. You'll love it."

Harry nodded, "Okay, I'm convinced. So how's your story on me and the DCI going?"

Hermione laughed, "If my editor knew we were dating, she'd probably cancel the story because of conflict of interest…no, the stories are running tomorrow, front page of the _Prophet_."

"Good, I'll get a copy or two," Harry said.

Hermione's hand was lying on the table. His mind flashed back to a date with Cho he had had when he was fifteen on Valentine's Day. Her hand had been lying on the table and she had wanted him to hold it…that chain of events had eventually led to a fight.

Nervously, he reached out his hand and placed it on top of Hermione's. She looked a little surprised, but relaxed in his grip. Her hand was soft and smooth. Harry felt a little embarrassed. His own hands were a bit rough and callused.

"Are my hands bothering you? They're kind of rough," he said, flushing.

Her eyes were closed and she said dreamily, "No, I like it. It feels so… _manly_."

Harry's heart swelled. She didn't mind his hands! Even Sandra had disliked their calluses. Hermione thought it was _manly_ and there was nothing more inspiring for a guy than to hear his date call him 'manly.'

"We're following your Africa suggestion," Harry said, changing the subject, "we're sending a couple of our guys out to South Africa."

"Really? Cool," she said, "I'm glad I could help."

"Yeah…I don't think Sonny's entirely convinced and neither is the Minister. They're only going along with it, because I'm backing it," Harry said, "but we _are_ sending our best, semiretired team out onto the field. Even though they're a bit eccentric, especially together."

"Let me guess," she said, "Blaise Zabini and Hannah Abbott."

"You know them?"

"I met them on my tour," she said, "I went into their office and they complained a bit about how you wouldn't let them do real field work."

"That's because they screwed with-wait, I can't tell you that," Harry said, stopping himself, "anyway, there's a good reason they were on probation. They _are_ our best team, but we do have to remind them to follow the rules sometimes."

Hermione nodded, "They seem like an interesting couple."

"Yeah, their wedding should be fun," Harry said, "it's in April, though."

The waiter had come back with their chais. Harry took a gulp of his and almost felt his tongue fall off. The thing was scalding hot. Hermione laughed.

"Drink slowly," she said, through giggles, "take sips."

He glared at her, but she only winked roguishly at him, and he also fell into laughter. To make his point, Harry started sipping the tea. After taking a few sips, he stuck out his tongue at her.

Hermione laughed, "You really are funny for an intelligence officer, you know."

"Our whole DCI is a bit crazy, sometimes," Harry replied, "I mean, you've met Blaise and Hannah. Then there's Finch-Fletchley who can be totally narcissistic. The guy _loves_ himself. And then you've got Mark who'll be cracking jokes one minute, and then yelling at you the next…"

"I think every workplace in the world has its own share of crazy people," Hermione said.

"Even reporters?" he asked, smiling.

" _Especially_ reporters."

They laughed again. Harry felt himself, relaxing. This was the most fun he'd had on a date in a _long_ time. Heck, this was probably the most fun he'd _ever_ had on a date. Dates with Cho were excruciating and while Sandra was interesting, they had fought a lot.

"Two naans, your butter chicken, and tandoori chicken," the waiter announced, putting the steaming dishes on their table. "Enjoy."

Harry had to admit that the stuff looked good. The butter chicken was brownish-orange in a curry sort of thing and looked really creamy. The tandoori chicken was red and seemed to be burning. The combination with all the herbs around it made the presentation good too. And the naans, a sort of Indian bread, looked nice.

"Let me serve," Hermione said.

Harry nodded. He really had no idea how to eat any of this. She took the spoon in the butter chicken dish and ladled some onto both Harry's plate and her own. She then gave them each a tandoori chicken breast. Hermione then put a naan on each of their plates.

"You eat the butter chicken by dipping the naan in it," she said, "and the tandoori chicken is just like a normal chicken breast."

Harry nodded, absorbing the information. He took the naan and dipped it into the butter chicken. He then placed it into his mouth. It was heavenly.

"I think veal parmigiana just dropped to number two on my favorite foods list," Harry said.

She laughed, "I told you that you'd like it. This food is amazing. They cook it really well here and Indian food is probably the best in the world."

Harry nodded, biting into the tandoori chicken. This was really good as well. Wow…he had never thought he could say that veal parmigiana was _third_ favorite food in the world, but now it was.

They ate the rest of the meal in silence, both enjoying the food and the silent companionship of the other. Harry got himself a refilling of his chai and when they finally finished, Harry felt his stomach full to bursting.

"That was a great meal," he said.

"Yeah," she replied, dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin.

The waiter came over and told Harry that the cost was forty-eight pounds. He pulled it out of his pocket and gave it to the man. Hermione looked like she was about to argue against Harry paying it all, but Harry silenced her with a look. He was a gentleman, and there was no way he wasn't going to pay for her food.

Thanking the owner and leaving a handsome tip for the waiter, Harry and Hermione walked out of the restaurant, smiling serenely. It was pretty dark and he felt Hermione cuddle a bit closer to him. He grinned to himself. He didn't mind one bit.

"Wanna go get some ice cream?" Harry asked.

"I don't know…are you full?"

"Pretty full, but we could share one."

"Okay."

"I'll show you the place this time," Harry said, smiling.

She smiled back at him and snuggled even closer. Harry put his arm around her waist and they walked to the familiar (for Harry) destination of Florean Fortescue's.

"I haven't been here," Hermione said.

"Really?" Harry asked, "It has the best ice cream in the world here and Florean always gives me discounts."

They walked into the little shop, which was nearly empty. Florean himself was standing behind the counter.

"Harry, how are you, old chap?" Florean asked, shaking hands with Harry.

"Good…and you?"

"Doing pretty well myself…we're about to close here. And who's this beautiful young lady with you?"

"Hermione Granger," she said, blushing slightly.

"And what would you like?"

"We'll have one banana ice cream," Harry told him and then turned to Hermione. "I know it sounds crazy but banana ice cream is great."

She nodded, trusting Harry. Florean handed the medium-sized ice cream back to Harry and took some money in return, "Well, it's about time to close. Good night, you two."

"Good night."

Harry and Hermione walked out of the shop and started walking down the main street of Diagon Alley. Harry slipped his hand into Hermione's and they began eating the ice cream together.

"You're right, Harry, that ice cream really was good."

"I like the way bananas taste," he replied as they walked up to her room. Then he grinned cheekily. "It's not as good as whatever lip gloss you use though."

She blushed furiously as they finally had stopped upon her door.

"That was amazing," he said, "I'd really like to do it again sometime."

"Are you free on Friday?" she asked, her hand on the door knob.

"Yeah…but are you free any earlier? I don't want to wait that long."

She smiled at the pouty expression on his face, "Okay, how about Wednesday?"

His face brightened, "All right! Same time?"

"You bet. Do you have a phone?" she asked.

"Yes. It's sort of adaptable to wizard environments. Why?"

"Here's my phone number," she said, scribbling it down on a piece of paper she procured from her purse, "call me."

"Well, good night."

Harry leaned down and kissed her on the lips. She kissed him back, her arms wrapping around his neck. For a few minutes, they stood there, their lips locked together. Finally, they stopped and broke away.

"Wow."

"Yeah," he said, grinning.

"Good night, Harry."

"Good night, Hermione. I'll see you on Wednesday."

Harry couldn't help but smile all the way back to the lobby. He had just had the most amazing date of his life. Hermione was amazing. Life was amazing! He let out a loud whoop as he reentered his apartment. happiness radiating from head to toe.


	8. Act of Terror

Hey guys, about to be busy for a few days so I figured I'd update another chapter right away to not leave you guys hanging for so long. Thankful for the response to the last chapter, fluffy dates are always fun haha. This chapter is not as much along those lines but should be a fun one to read regardless. Enjoy!

 **Chapter Eight-Act of Terror**

 **Tuesday, January 5, 2005**

 _Johannesburg International Airport, Johannesburg, South Africa_

The first thing Blaise noticed was the heat. The place was overrun with it. He had just gotten out of the aircraft, Hannah by his side, and the wave of heat that had hit him almost knocked him over.

"It's so fucking HOT," Hannah groaned.

"Tell me about it," Blaise said, running a hand through his constantly wet and sweaty hair.

Grumbling, the two intelligence officers called a taxi which took them towards their hotel.

"Should be a fun job," Hannah said sarcastically.

Blaise ran a hand along her neck, "It always is with you."

She smiled serenely. She knew that Blaise thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world…and he would always make her feel like it. Even though Harry and the others thought Blaise was sarcastic and a bit nasty, she loved both him and his sense of humor. _Especially_ his sense of humor.

The taxi reached the hotel and Blaise paid the driver. They checked in and finally reached their room.

"Damn, I'm beat," Blaise said, collapsing onto the bed.

Hannah got into the bed and lay her head on his chest, "Mmmm…we should just sleep."

Blaise nodded slowly, running his hand across her curly blond hairs. He felt his eyes slowly closing. Tomorrow would be time for some work.

 _Voldemort's Headquarters, England_

"Tell me, Rookwood, is the Chinese government open to an agreement?"

"Sir, several of my sources tell me that the Minister is very open to an agreement. He believes, correctly, that you will be the winning side and everybody likes a winner. The Emir also has sent word that the Iranian government has bowed to his wishes, as expected."

"Good," Voldemort said, "let him know that I am pleased. Also, tell him to let us know when the other countries fall behind Iran on this one and support us."

"Yes, my Lord," Rookwood said, "and…China?"

"See if you can arrange a meeting between the Minister and I."

"Will do, my Lord."

"You are dismissed."

Voldemort leaned back into his comfortable chair as Rookwood left. Damn, he wanted Luna. He hadn't had her in almost a week. At least tomorrow was Wednesday. He ached for her. She was so beautiful…and so goddamn sexy…he shook his head to clear it. He needed to focus on China and his war.

 _Potter Home, London, England_

Harry opened his eyes slowly, sighing as he often did to begin the day. He was _not_ a morning person. Grumbling, he headed into his bathroom to shower and shave.

After getting the morning necessities done, he headed into his kitchen where

Devon had already prepared fresh pancakes for him. The _Daily Prophet_ was sitting next to the plate. He suddenly remembered that Hermione had written an article about him and the DCI that was going to be in the paper. Sitting down, he pulled the newspaper towards him. The front page had a large picture of him, smiling rather forcedly and looking for all the world like he'd rather be anywhere else. There were two articles on the page, one on him and one on the DCI. He read the DCI one first; it was more important to see what she had said about his office.

 _For the past two weeks, I have been looking around at the Department of Central Intelligence, the controversial intelligence bureau that Arthur Weasley founded seven years ago, writes Hermione Granger, reporter for the_ Daily Prophet _. According to the Director of the Operations Directorate, Harry James Potter (see adjoining article), "The Department of Central Intelligence was founded seven years ago by Minister Weasley for two purposes: the Intelligence Directorate was to analyze information about Death Eaters, You-Know-Who, and any other possible threats to wizard-kind. The Operations Directorate was to get and then act on that information."_

 _The new problem that is arising and facing the DCI (Department of Central Intelligence) is the new abundance of terrorist acts aimed at our country. Ron Weasley, the Director of the Intelligence Directorate, told me, "Terrorism is probably now a bigger threat facing us than the Death Eaters." As evidenced by the Edinburgh attack of several days ago, the country faces serious problems with terrorism._

 _But can the DCI solve them? When I asked Mr. Potter why the Ministry should keep his agency around and spend money on them if they can't even stop terrorist acts, he replied heatedly, "[Expletive], it's not that simple! Even if we can get information, we have to be able to stop them. That takes manpower and money, two things we don't have a great supply of around here. Look, there's a bunch of things we do that you don't read about in the_ Daily Prophet _, but it doesn't mean we're just sitting here on our [expletives] doing nothing!"_

 _After several hours interviewing people and talking to high-level management sources, I have to agree with him. A source inside the Intelligence Directorate told me about a huge terrorist act aimed at Diagon Alley last year. According to the source, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, and the Director of the Department of Central Intelligence, Sonny McLeod themselves personally stopped terrorists from blowing up the entire shopping area. Estimated dead would have been about three hundred. The source also showed me several other instances of terrorist acts that were prevented, but we never heard about it. It is this reporter's view that the DCI is doing a fundamentally good job at apprehending terrorists._

 _The next questions is, of course, why have the DCI (or at least the Operations Directorate) if you have Aurors? The reply from Mr. Potter is quite shocking:_

 _"Aurors are good; they can be useful. But they are so fundamentally ingrained into the system that they cannot be any use in this sort of thing. Some of the stuff we deal with in here is 'black' meaning that you will never, ever know about it. Only a few people have access to 'black' stuff and some Aurors would feel…shall we say, conflicted?...about what to do. No, if Aurors get their own information and get someone, good for them. But Aurors will never join this Department…Let's face it, Aurors leak like hell. They give information away to reporters like you guys deserve it. In the Department of Central Intelligence, we can't have that kind of stuff. There is a reason for it, and although most of the time you won't even notice what we did, what we're doing keeps you alive."_

 _An in-fight between Aurors and the DCI? Maybe so. Zacharias Smith, one of the best Aurors in the Ministry and a noted advocate for dissolving the DCI, had this to say to Mr. Potter's statement._

 _"The DCI is a bloody waste of money. They get intelligence but they don't always act on it. Aurors get just as good intelligence, but we_ act _on it. Mr. Potter doesn't really know what he's talking about. He's just so puffed-up in his own glory that he forgot that Aurors are the real saviors of this nation. I know for a fact that he wanted to be an Auror once himself. What made him change? Nobody really knows…I think he couldn't handle the pressure of actually getting real work done."_

 _This reporter, while happily allowing Mr. Smith his point of view, must disagree. On a secret trip that I was allowed to accompany Mr. Potter on, I saw the DDO make a deal that will help our nation in any upcoming wars. The DCI is doing the real work._

 _And as the Minister of Magic, Arthur Weasley said:_

 _"The DCI does so many things that the people never hear about. The DCI is unbelievable; their intelligence is unparalleled. I know that I sleep soundly at night because the DCI is out there, watching over us."_

Harry looked up, one part of the article sticking out more than most. She knew about the terrorist act they had prevented last year. Dammit. She had a pretty good source in the Intelligence Directorate. They would have to find who it was…it might even be the same rat who had given out the information about the terrorist ring a few weeks ago.

He turned to his own article.

 _Man of Mysteries_

 _"It's what I was born to do."_

 _Harry James Potter is undeniably a man of mysteries and complexities, writes Hermione Granger, reporter for the_ Daily Prophet _. He can be nice and charming one second and mean as hell the next. He can be funny, yet nasty. Friendly, yet distrustful._

 _He dislikes reporters, yet was pretty kind to me_ (Harry snorted at this) _. At any rate, some of the statistics on Harry are a bit surprising. He's only had two girlfriends, only one of which lasted a long period of time._

 _This man, who helped fund Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, also can be very secretive especially when it comes to his work. Several times, he had to have me leave the room so he could read whatever information he was getting without any chance of me reading it. He takes his clearances seriously._

 _Yet the man can be charming too. He gives waiters large tips. Every now and then, he'll smile benignly at you, for a few seconds, allowing you to glimpse into his hidden soul. The emerald eyes sparkle and burn as he talks. The depth in those eyes can sometimes be frightening._

 _He really loves his job. The DCI is his life's work; he says he joined it because, "I want to be able to stop You-Know-Who (Harry does say the name)." The two things he regrets most in life are, "I guess I regret inadvertently causing the deaths of Cedric Diggory and my godfather, Sirius Black. I'm sure you know the story behind both of those." For readers not familiar with the Diggory and Black stories, please look inside on page six._

 _The final word on this man is that he can be charming and lovely, but nasty when he wants to be. This man of complexities will probably continue to be one for the foreseeable future. And he's absolutely right. This_ is _what he was born to do._

Harry almost started laughing from the moment he started reading the letter. _Man of Mysteries_? He couldn't wait to ask Hermione about that one tomorrow. Laughing, he put it away. Time to get to work.

 _Ministry of Magic, London, England_

"Arthur? Mr. Zabini's in to see you," his secretary told him. Arthur Weasley nodded.

Thomas Zabini walked into the room, radiating power as generals often did. Tom was the older brother of Blaise (although Mr. Weasley did not know who Blaise was) and one of the best tacticians/generals wizard-kind had ever seen. Rumor had it that he had never lost a chess game. He had pulled a brilliant coup four years ago in Russia, winning a fight for the outmanned Russians against the insurgent Chechens. His name was almost legend among the normal wizard community and few people got the same amount of respect he got at the high levels.

He was only twenty-nine, however. This often led to some disappointment upon viewing him. Tom's favorite story to tell was how he was in a bar one day and a drunk fellow had told him that there was 'no way' Tom was actually Tom. According to the guy, "Tom Zabini's old and crusty. He's got red eyes, green hair, and smoke coming out of his ears…that's what one of my pals says." Tom in fact had brown eyes and brown hair and was young and strong-headed. He did not believe in defeat, even when all the chips were stacked against him.

Arthur knew that he had to treat Zabini with respect. Van Damm had told him earlier that this was probably the most important meeting he would ever conduct. This was slightly tempered by the fact that Zabini was wearing a baseball cap.

"Tom," said Mr. Weasley, nodding for him to sit down, "as you know, there will soon be a global war."

Tom Zabini nodded. He had been briefed by the Deputy Director of the Intelligence Directorate in the DCI.

"The combined forces of Asia and perhaps, Australia, along with Voldemort will descend upon our country. I want you to be our commander against these troops."

"Who's on our side?" Tom asked.

"America, France, Russia, and Germany for sure. Other minor European countries. We have two officers down in South Africa negotiating with several African countries right now."

Tom's face took on a thoughtful look, "Are we going to wait for them to make the first move?"

Mr. Weasley's face looked troubled, "I am not sure. We are going to have to wait until the African negotiations conclude. Then, you, the DCI, and I can make a decision on that."

"I accept the post as commander. I expect able-bodied troops," he added. "I don't want to walk into a war with a bunch of stiffs. I may have a better plan, but the side with the best troops always wins."

"You will have the best we can get. Already my messengers are traveling to wizard homes all over the country, recruiting young men and women. We are also hoping Hogwarts can perhaps produce some good wizards. The other countries promise their very best to help us."

"Good. Tell me when these African negotiations conclude…we can then have that summit."

"Yes. Thank you for taking this job," Mr. Weasley said, finally allowing a little bit of humanity to crack through his poker face. "We really need you."

"I know. And I'll deliver."

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

"Okay, who's the leak?" Harry asked, striding into Sonny's office.

Ron's secretary had told him that Ron was here, so he had gone into Sonny's office, wondering if they had any answers.

"I'm not sure," Ron said, sighing, "it's probably the same idiot as last time. He probably didn't listen to Mark's warning."

"Yeah. Do you think we have any way of finding out who?" Sonny asked, "This is serious guys. Next time, this guy may leak something we're still in the middle of; not something we've already done."

Harry nodded, sitting down, "You think we should subject every member of the Intelligence Directorate to Veritaserum?"

Sonny sighed, "I hate the concept, but I have to agree with you. We have to do this…Ron, this is your department, you give the final go on this."

"It's a go," Ron replied, "this is serious stuff. I'm tired of this junk being linked to my department. Harry, your Deputy Director's making jokes about our Directorate and that bugs me…I want this cleared up once and for all."

Sonny nodded, "Get your secretary to collect them all. You can conduct the process, Ron."

"Okay, I'll go then. By the way, how'd your date go, Harry?"

Both Sonny and Ron looked interestedly at Harry. He smiled at them.

"It was awesome."

"Did you kiss?"

"Make out?"

"Have sex?"

"Calm down, calm down," he said, waving their silly questions aside, "come on, you guys, you know I'm not like that."

"Yeah, Harry Potter, the Last of the Virgins," Ron said, rolling his eyes but smiling affectionately.

Harry groaned. "All we did was kiss."

They grinned at him, "Is she good?"

"She's great," he replied.

Ron and Sonny laughed, before Sonny added, "When are you meeting again?"  
"Tomorrow," he said, smiling, "I can't wait."

 _Hotel Paradise, Tehran, Iran_

Ben looked over the quick letter from ROBIN, a bit shocked. Apparently, their source knew that something big was happening tomorrow in England. There was going to be some sort of attack in Manchester by another terrorist organization. But ROBIN didn't know all the details. This one was under the wraps.

"We got to send this back home as fast as we can," Katie said, grabbing Dante out of his cage.

"Yeah," Ben replied, tying the letter to the owl's leg and scribbling a note on top of it, "this is deadly."

They watched as Dante soared off.

"I only hope they know what to do," he said.

"They will," Katie said, "they always do."

He smiled at the her, running his hand through her straight brown hair. They had been jarred out of a kissing session by the owl from ROBIN. It was the first time he had ever gotten an owl when he was only in his boxers and a girl was next to him, only in a nightgown. Things had been about to escalate when the owl had arrived.

"Now, to get back to what we were doing…" Ben said, taking the nightgown off Katie's shoulders.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Harry was about to pick up his coat and head for home when Mark burst into the room.

"Sir, Sonny said for you to get into his office as soon as you can. He sounds really worried."

"Okay, thanks, Mark. You go home, though. Unless you're going with Nicole…?"

"Haha, very funny, Harry," Mark said, rolling his eyes, but not really denying the charge either.

"See you later, Mark."

Harry walked briskly down to Sonny's office. What was so serious Sonny wanted to see him as soon as possible? He met Ron outside Sonny's door and he shrugged to show that he didn't know what it was all about either.

"Read this," Sonny said, tossing a letter to them as soon as they entered.

They both read through it extremely fast and then looked up at Sonny, their faces worried.

"Yeah...sounds serious doesn't it?"

"Manchester," said Harry, scratching his chin, "not as big of a target as London."

"Yeah, but it'll get the message across," Ron replied, "do you have anyone we can send there?"

"Not really at the moment," Harry said, "Jenkins is still recovering from that jinx he got five weeks ago and it's been a while since I've been in the field. I think I'll go."

"I'll come with you," Ron said, "Luna has to go to Voldemort's tomorrow anyway."

Sonny nodded, "You guys are the best. I trust you out on the field more than anyone else…I give the go-ahead. I'm going to send a message back to Katie and Ben asking them to try and keep us informed. I'm also going to send them that cell phone so I can get constant updates."

"But how will you update us?"

He pulled out another cell phone, "I got Mr. Weasley to give us enough money to buy another one. We now have two. You keep one in Manchester; Katie and Ben will have one in Iran. I'll use the phones here to update you."

"Can't they link directly to us?" Ron asked.

He shook his head, "Both phones can only connect with headquarters, sorry. So I'll have to be the middleman."

"Okay," Harry said, "let's get over there, tonight."

"Apparate?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "Wait, can I call Hermione?"

Ron and Sonny snickered as he picked up one of the normal telephones on Sonny's desk and dialed Hermione's number.

"Hello, this is Hermione Granger. May I know who's calling?"

"It's Harry."

"Hi, Harry!" He could hear the barely contained excitement in her voice.

"Listen, I'm sorry but I have to break our date tomorrow. Something came up so I won't be able to make it."

"That's all right, I understand," she said, "just call me when you get back."

"Okay."

"Good luck on whatever you're doing," she said, "and remember, stay alive…because I want to keep dating you."

He smiled, "All right. Good-bye."

Harry hung up the phone and rolled his eyes at Sonny and Ron who were making simpering noises, rather childishly.

"I'm surprised she understood," he said. "Sandra used to get so mad at me when I had to break our dates."

Ron shrugged, "Maybe she actually _loves_ you."

Harry laughed, "I don't think it's even close to that yet. I mean we've only known either for like two weeks!"

"'Love waits for no man,'" Ron said importantly. "It's a famous saying quoted by generation after generation…Well, actually it's not. I just made it up. But nevertheless it's true. This may be the start of something serious for you guys."

"Maybe."

Sonny nodded, showing that he agreed with Ron. Harry simply shook his head and watched as Ron called Luna. She didn't seem to mind either and told Ron that she did want to see him on Thursday, if it was possible.

"Man, you must be a bloody good screw for a fucking prostitute to want you that badly," Sonny joked.

He was rewarded with a punch.

"Come on, let's go."

Harry pocketed one of the two cell phones on the desk and he Apparated to a safe house they had in Manchester. Ron followed suit.

 _Hotel Paradise, Tehran, Iran_

It was about eleven o'clock in Tehran when Ben received the message and cell phone on Dante's leg. He read through it and then shook awake the sleeping Katie. "What is it?"

"They want us to try and get more information from this ROBIN guy," he said, "apparently, Harry and Ron are in Manchester. They want us to update Sonny as we go with the cell phone. He'll update Harry and Ron after we give him the info."

"Okay, we'll have to get in contact with ROBIN," Katie said, her eyes closed.

"How?"

"Let's tell him to send us information as soon as he finds anything out to us," she said, "anything and everything."

"Yeah, but how much use will it be?"

"Who knows? But we got to try and help them."

"You're right," said Ben, lying back down next to his girlfriend's body.

"Send the letter to ROBIN."

"Right."

Sighing, he got back up and quickly scribbled a note to ROBIN which he gave to Dante. Dante looked rather reproachfully at him, but still flew off into the night. Ben came back to the bed.

He ran a hand over Katie's left breast.

"You are so beautiful," he murmured.

She answered by simply placing her hand on his heart and snuggling up next to him.

 **Wednesday, January 6, 2005**

 _Golden Reef Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa_

"Wake up, gorgeous," a sing-songy voice told him.

Blaise groaned and awoke to the beautiful face of his wife-to-be. She was already dressed. Hannah was in her favorite look-her 'Hogwarts' look in which she would wear a white dress shirt with a dark tie, completed by a long gray skirt. Hannah liked to have the collar a bit loose and this served to help turn Blaise on. He could never look at that slightly loosened collar and not feel his toes curl in a hopeful anticipation.

"Damn, why do you always loosen that collar?" Blaise asked, rolling out of bed.

"Because it makes you want me even more," she said coyly.

"And our sex is better when you do wear that," Blaise observed, walking into the bathroom.

After showering, brushing, and shaving, he came back to the hotel room, where Hannah was reading the _Prophet_.

"Nothing interesting," she said, "yesterday's Harry article was pretty good."

"Yeah…that reporter seemed pretty nice when she talked to us," Blaise said, straightening his tie as he put on his attire.

Hannah nodded, "Well, do you want to do the assessment of the usefulness of African wizards first or the negotiations?"

"Usefulness," he said, "we might as well not bother doing the negotiations if they're useless."

Hannah looked at him reproachfully, "Come on, Blaise, you know that some wizards are better than none. And they did want us to do it…and, you know that if we pull this off, we'll be off our mythical 'punishment.'"

"You're right," he said, "but I still think we should do the assessment first."

"Agreed. You want to do the usual way?"

"Of course."

They walked out of the hotel together, Blaise grabbing a piece of toast for them to share. They headed to the market to begin their assessment.

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

The phone rang. Sonny had slept overnight at the DCI headquarters, in case any calls came in. He had been organizing papers when the phone rang-he had wanted something to do while waiting. He picked it up.

"Sonny?"

"Yeah. What is it?"

"ROBIN sent us his first update. All we've got so far is that Manchester has a new indoor wizard shopping mall. The attack is aimed there," Katie's voice told him, "we'll tell you more as we get it."

"Thanks."

He hung up and turned and punched in the cell phone number of Harry.

"Harry, this is Sonny."

"Okay, what's up?"

"Ben and Katie have information that the attack is aimed at Manchester's new indoor wizard shopping mall."

"We've seen it. We'll head over there immediately."

"Remember, use this cell phone privately. We don't want people to see that a Muggle invention is working in the wizard world."

"Affirmative," Harry told him.

"My advice would also be to disguise yourself, Harry. We don't want people recognizing you right off the bat. Same for Ron."

"Got it. You'll keep us informed?"

"You bet."

Sonny hung up and blew out a long breath. This was going to be a long day.

 _DCI Safe House, Manchester, England_

"These are nice."

"You know it."

Harry and Ron were putting on their disguises. Harry had conjured long black trench coats for them, which would help conceal their wands' locations. They were also wearing sunglasses to disguise their eyes. Harry had gelled his hair to make it a little more wavy, colored it red, and disguised his scar. Ron's hair was now spiky and blond. They were totally unrecognizable.

"Let's go."

 _Manchester Shopping Mall, Manchester, England_

The shopping mall was gigantic, the largest of its kind in England. Harry immediately realized that this would be both a problem and a help for them. It would provide a large area for them to hide and take cover, but also would make it more difficult to protect everyone. More area, more people.

"Dammit, this place is big."

Ron shook his head, "Too large of an area to cover with just the two of us."

"Yeah," Harry said, "maybe we'll get lucky and all the terrorists will stick to one area, if we have a firefight."

"Would make it a hell of a lot easier."

Harry nodded and looked at the shops. There was an outpost of Ollivander's just around the corner. He remembered the long story behind his own wand as he silently fingered it beneath his trench coat. The brother of Voldemort's wand.

Shaking his head, he looked at Ron, "Come on, Ron, let's scout the general area. Let's hope they don't attack too soon."

"And hopefully, we're at the right place at the right time."

 _Golden Alley, Johannesburg, South Africa_

"Who do you think you are, punk?" the African wizard asked, pushing Blaise.

This was Blaise's method of generally assessing the abilities of a group of wizards. Pick a fight with a bunch of them. See if it's easy for you to win or not. Of course it wasn't foolproof, but it was his favorite strategy. It also gave Hannah and him a chance to get some practice with their wands.

"Much more of a man than you are," Blaise replied, "you little n-."

Blaise had said the right thing to infuriate the crowd. He was not a racist, but he did know the best way to get under someone's skin. In truth, he liked Africans, but this was the best way to test their abilities.

A group of the Africans began angrily snarling and circling around them. Blaise smiled inwardly. It was too easy.

"Come on, bring it on," Hannah said.

They looked a little surprised at having a woman taunt them, but they didn't seem to have any noticeable qualms about attacking her. That was good, Blaise noted silently. In a battle, you could not afford to differentiate the sexes. An enemy was an enemy, be it man, woman, or child. If they had a wand pointed at you, they all merged into targets.

" _Densaungeo!_ " shouted a tall man to Hannah's right. Hannah easily dodged the spell.

Suddenly, their leader began speaking in Afrikaans, no longer using English. The men began listening to him while dodging the spells Blaise and Hannah threw at them.

Annoyed, Blaise tried to understand what they were saying, but it was to no avail. The group began moving out of its circle and into a sort of V-formation. Blaise and Hannah looked at each other nervously. This was a new tactic.

The V-formation charged them and soon Blaise was dodging and jumping around as all sorts of spells were shooting towards him. It took the best of his abilities to avoid all of them; a few still hit the edge of his robes. Hannah was doing slightly better. She hadn't been hit, but she was flustered. Never had they faced such intimidating and _smart_ foes.

Blaise gave a signal to Hannah and they both Apparated back to their hotel. While it hurt their pride to do this, it was necessary. Blaise knew that if they had stayed they would've been killed.

"Wow…they're good," Blaise managed, gasping for breath.

"Yeah, Harry or whoever came up with this idea definitely knew what they were talking about," Hannah said, "to have these guys on _our_ side…"

"Good thing we were disguised," Blaise said, pulling off his hood, "otherwise they might have an aversion to us English people."

"And our accents too," said Hannah, modifying her voice back to normal with her wand.

"Think we should approach the government tomorrow?"

"We'll have to go to Cape Town for it, but yeah, I think we should."

"Okay," Hannah said, shedding her cloak to reveal her normal clothing, "want to go get some dinner or do you want to rest a bit?"

"Let's hit one of the local restaurants…um, maybe we should make it Muggle. You know, we don't want to run in those dudes again. Just in case they _did_ recognize us this time."

"You're right…let's go."

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

 _L_ "Sonny, the new information is that the attack is to be at two o'clock in the afternoon."

"That gives us two hours," Sonny said, checking his watch, "do you know what _kind_ of attack it's going to be?"

"Yes, sir. A straight wandfight. There's four terrorists that are conducting the operation. They're all entering at the four separate major entrances. Their aim is to attack women and children. They know that they'll die, but the objective is to kill as many children and women with them as they can. Men that get in the way will also be killed," explained Ben.

"Damn it," breathed Sonny, "those bastards are serious, aren't they?"

"Yeah. I'd suggest sending at least two more people up there. You'll need a different one to man each of the separate entrances," Ben replied.

"Agreed. Any recommendations?"

"Creevey and Lawson are good officers, Katie says," Ben said.

"Okay, I'll send them up. Harry likes them?"

"A lot. They're both young but good."

"Thanks, Ben. Keep me updated."

 _Manchester Shopping Mall, Manchester, England_

Harry nodded as he listened to what Sonny was saying, "Okay, send them right up. Tell them to Apparate outside Ollivander's. We'll meet them there."

After disconnecting, he quickly explained everything Sonny had told him to Ron. Ron nodded. Four entrances. They would each have to man one. They headed near Ollivander's, waiting for their two fellow DCI workers.

About six minutes later, Colin Creevey and Nigel Lawson appeared next to them. Nigel was a cherub-faced wizard with a talent for blocking spells and intercepting information. Colin was smart, quick with his attacks, and left-handed, which always seemed to throw his opponent off in duels.

"Hey, guys. Sonny's briefed you in, right?"

"Yeah, we're ready to kill those animals," Nigel said.

"The four main entrances to this mall are Dervish and Banges, The Whole Cauldron, Melissa's Boutique, and Kornheiser's Ice Cream. Ron, you take Dervish and Banges. I'll take The Whole Cauldron, Nigel, you take Melissa's Boutique, and Colin, you have Kornheiser's Ice Cream. They're going to be just trying to kill as many people as you can. The objective is to kill them as fast as we can, before they can kill any civilians. Be on the lookout for an Iranian/Arabic looking dude around two o'clock. By the way, disguise yourselves you two. We don't want any guys they sent as scouts recognizing us as DCI guys," Harry said, and then his eyes hardened, "good luck, gentlemen. Let's hunt these bastards."

Colin Creevey tapped his feet impatiently at Kornheiser's Ice Cream. It was about one-thirty. Thirty minutes till the attack. He really wanted to get one of the ice creams, but knew that he couldn't afford to do that. If the bad guy came in while he was eating, it would not be a good situation for him. Not too mention that the ice cream would make his hands sticky, another minus in a duel. So he tried to look around interestedly at the various people walking in and around the ice cream shop. The south entrance, which Colin was manning, was the entrance from outside. The north entrance came from the main mall. Colin was pretty sure that he had guessed right in expecting the terrorist to walk in from outside.

Twenty-five minutes.

Ron leaned his head against the wall. Dervish and Banges was a pretty good joke shop, though not as good as Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. This place was filled mostly with kids. Definitely a good target for those terrorists. The uncaring bastards.

He looked at a few exploding volcanoes before looking towards the entrance again.

Twenty minutes.

The flowers in Melissa's Boutique were high-quality ones, Nigel noticed. Maybe, after the job was finished, he would pick some out for his wife. She liked carnations. They had a good supply of pink ones here. He smiled benignly at another young man who was probably buying flowers for his girlfriend. He looked at his watch.

Ten minutes.

The Whole Cauldron was an offshoot of The Leaky Cauldron, Inc. which had been formed a few years ago by Tom, the bartender at the Leaky Cauldron. There were now several Leaky Cauldrons all over the country. The Whole Cauldron was a new and improved version. It wasn't as dingy and as run-down as all the Leaky Cauldrons were, even the new Leakys.

Harry had already gulped down a butterbeer, which he liked to drink before a battle. It gave him a renewed sense of energy. He was long done with it now and silently fingering his wand under his trench coat.

Five minutes.

Colin looked at his watch. Thirty seconds. He slowly began removing his wand out of his trench coat pocket. He had disguised himself much in the same way Ron and Harry had, except his hair was now black. Twenty seconds. He went through the mental checklist in his head. He knew where all the exits were. He knew where the others were and how far away they were. Ten seconds. Nine…eight…this was going to be fun …seven …six… he'd better not screw up or else it would be his job…five…four…three… showtime, he thought…two…one…

He heard the door slam about ten feet from him. An Arabic-looking guy strolled in and was pointing his wand at the ceiling.

"Everybody, get down!" the Arab guy shouted in accented English. Several women and children began screaming all going low to the ground. The few men in the shop looked too shocked to do anything and already had put their bodies against the ground.

"I don't think so," Colin replied, pulling out his wand.

The terrorist yelled something in Arabic. Colin had learned a few words of Arabic and he got the basic gist of what the guy was yelling was, "I'll kill you and all these women and babies."

"We'll see."

Harry kicked the body of the already dead terrorist aside. He had killed the guy in less than fifteen seconds. The guy had been pretty well-trained, but no match for Harry.

"Listen to me!" he shouted, silencing all the drunk, scared, and surprised occupants, "Everybody stay here! All right? I'm going to go help your other fellow shoppers."

The occupants of the Whole Cauldron nodded, evidently too frightened to argue with him.

He turned on his heel and headed towards the nearest shop to him, Melissa's Boutique.

Nigel was in the middle of a heated duel with a short Arabic guy when he heard Harry's swishing trench coat walk in to the shop.

"You got this covered, Nigel?" he yelled.

"I think so," he shouted back, before kneeing the Arab in the groin, " _Stupefy!_ "

The Arab fell over, still clutching his middle. Nigel turned back to Harry and grinned.

"Told you so."

Harry nodded and then turned to the people in Melissa's Boutique, "Listen up! Stay here until the authorities arrive, all right? Just stay here!"

"Who _are_ you guys?" shouted a teenage girl's voice.

"People just doing their service to the neighborhood."

Ron met up with Harry and Nigel in the middle of the mall, "Finished my guy."

"We expected as much. Where's Colin?"

"Probably still with his guy. Let's go," Ron said.

"Who _are_ you?" the Arab asked as he dodged another one of Colin's spells.

"The man who's about to kill you."

Colin leaped out with his right foot, kicking the wand out of the man's hands. With his left hand, he sucker-punched the man in the face. The Arab's face began bleeding.

" _Stupefy!_ " Colin knew that such a strong spell with the man's life already hanging in the balance would tip the scales. He would be dead within a minute. He didn't feel sorry at all. The bastard wanted to kill _innocent_ people. He deserved it.

"Nice job, Colin," he heard Harry's voice. "Nigel kept his alive, so we can take him back to the headquarters and 'interview' him. I already sent a message for the Aurors to come. Let's get out of here, with the guy, before we get into a turf war with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"Okay, Harry," Colin said, smiling for the first time, "we kicked their asses."

"Of course we did," Harry said, his teeth baring ferally in the moonlight, "we're the Operations Directorate and we _will not_ mess up."


	9. Dinner at Ron's

Hey guys here's the next chapter. Thanks for all the feedback so far. So it doesn't affect this chapter but will affect the story soon. Initially when I wrote this story it was quite smutty (definitely requiring an M rating) but I can easily tone it down or rewrite it so its mostly alluded to or hinted at rather than written out explicitly. Or would you guys prefer me to leave that in and get some hot Harry/Hermione action? Haha. Let me know in the reviews and I'll make a decision based on that.

 **Chapter Nine-Dinner at Ron's**

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

"Yes, Hermione," Harry said. "I heard about it."

"Harry, were you there?" Hermione squealed, "supposedly, just four guys in trench coats broke up the attack and then disappeared with one of the terrorist bodies. And you had to break our date for an intelligence mission of some sort. Was it you?"

Harry sighed into the phone, "Hermione, I can't tell you that. You know that. I'm sorry for having to break our date. I know I'm back and it's the night of our date and everything…but I'm too tired, all right?"

"Okay, just rest up, all right? Is Friday good for you?"

"Hey, I've got an idea," Harry said, "why don't we go over to Ron's house? He's got a new girlfriend and I think it'd be fun to have dinner at his house. If it's okay with you, I'll ask him."

He could almost see Hermione's smile, "That sounds great, Harry. You're really wonderful to me, you know."

Even though no one else was in the room, Harry blushed, but he also smiled, "Hold on for a second, I'll go ask him. He's just outside my room at the moment."

Harry put the phone down and walked outside to where Ron and Sonny were waiting for him. They had been about to start interviewing the prisoner when Harry had decided that he wanted to call Hermione.

"Hey, Ron, can Hermione and I come over for dinner on Friday night or something? You know, you can have Luna there…make your world-famous steaks and corn-on-the-cob…" Harry said, his eyes pleading with Ron.

"You bet," Ron said, "just come over around six or something."

"Thanks, buddy, you're the best."

He went back inside and picked up the phone again, "He said it was fine with him. He makes some really good steaks. It'll be fun. So, you sure you want to come?"

"Of course, Harry," she said, "I'm looking forward to it."

"Me too," Harry said wistfully, "I'll pick you up around five-thirty. I can't wait to see you again."

"Me neither. I'll see you on Friday."

"Okay, good-bye."

He walked out of his room again where Ron and Sonny were laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, come on, you think we didn't press our ears up against the doors to listen to what you were saying?" Ron asked, snorting, "' _I can't wait to see you again._ ' And you say that you guys haven't gone all the way…"

Harry glared at them, "You two are so stupid, sometimes."

"Don't worry about it, Harry, old buddy," Sonny said, "your soft side is safe with us. Come on, let's go interview that prisoner."

They walked down to dungeons of the DCI, recently built after they had begun capturing prisoners. A few notable Death Eaters were in there, including Dolohov and Crabbe. They were guarded by a few Dementors that were employed by the DCI.

Sonny nodded professionally at the three Dementors outside the Arab's cell, before they walked in. He had already lost his glare and was sitting meekly on his chair. The Dementors had sucked that much life out of him. The DCI never had to use the most common way to interview prisoners-torturing them; the Dementors would do that without even being asked to.

"What's your name?"

"Hassan bin al-Din," he said emotionlessly.

"Who funded you and what terrorist organization do you belong to?" Ron asked.

"Al-Akbar. The man who came up with the idea is the head of our organization, Uday Ali."

Harry gritted his teeth, "Uday, our old friend."

"He will stop at nothing to destroy England and her allies."

Sonny nodded at the prisoner's statement, "He's right, of course. Ali hates our guts, 'cause we whacked his son. That was before the DCI was even formed."

"Does Uday Ali speak about 'the Emir' or the UIW organization at all?"

"Not to me, no," al-Din said, "but there were rumors floating around camp that the UIW was trying to reach an agreement with my group in a joined _jihad_."

"Has Voldemort contacted anyone in your organization?"

Al-Din shrugged.

"Thank you for your time," Sonny said, ending the short interview. They would come back later with more pressing questions, but for now, these were the important ones.

"About what you expected," Ron said, "this guy's just a grunt. Nobody important or high up in the organization."

"Yup. Well, I'm gonna go upstairs to my office and draft up the four Intelligence Stars for you all," Sonny said, tipping his hat as he left.

Harry had twelve Intelligence Stars, the highest honor any intelligence officer could get on the field or by analyzing. Ron had nine, but these would be Colin and Nigel's first ones. You didn't get them for nothing.

"I'll be counting on a good dinner," Harry said, smiling at Ron.

"You better keep counting, because it's gonna be amazing."

Ron walked back into his office where a surprise was waiting for him. Luna was sitting casually in her seat, her long legs wrapped onto his desk. Oh yes, he had forgotten. It was a Wednesday. The day of her sex report.

"Hey, Luna," Ron said, rubbing her exposed shoulders.

"Ron," she murmured.

"Let's get business done first," he said, heading around her and to his desk, "timing?"

"Twenty-nine minutes this time," she said, "he's getting faster and more agile. He noticed that I looked a bit more tired than usual. I just told him it was the usual holiday customers."

"Meaning me, of course," Ron said, writing the notes down.

"Of course. Nothing in the after-sex part…he was just going on about how beautiful I am. Nothing else."

"Damn. Oh well," Ron said, "hey, do you want to come over to my house on Friday night around five-thirty or so? Harry and Hermione Granger, his new girlfriend, are coming to my house at six and I thought it'd be nice to have you there…"

"Of course! I'd love to," Luna said, wrapping a tanned arm around Ron's neck, "but for now…"

Ron let her unbutton his shirt. This was going to be a good one. He eased off her dress, exposing her wonderful, golden breasts…

 _Ministry of Magic, Cape Town, South Africa_

"England wishes to open up a possible friendship with the good country of South Africa," Blaise told the South African Minister of Magic. It had taken some wrangling and the right documentation to prove to the government that they indeed did speak for the English Ministry.

"Interesting," said the South African Minister of Magic, whose name was Nelson de Klerk, "what would this friendship entail?"

"Minister," Hannah said, speaking for the first time, "the world is edging dangerously closer and closer to a global war. We have fewer allies on our side, but we believe we have the _stronger_ allies. We have America, France, Germany, Russia, and several other European countries on our side. The enemy, which includes Death Eaters, You-Know-Who (she didn't want to frighten de Klerk), and at least one terrorist organization, is ever-growing. We expect most of Asia and perhaps Australia to be behind this monster. We are offering you the chance to be on our side-the _winning_ side."

"What will England give us in return for joining their side in the war?"

"Aid to your people. You are undergoing a drought, as we well know," Blaise said/ "England will provide food and economic aid."

De Klerk nodded slowly, "I like it."

"We would also, of course, hope that the other African countries would go along with you. Perhaps if you would do some wrangling…and convince them to join us…?"

"Yes, I could," de Klerk said, "it is a done deal. South Africa will be behind England."

"Thank you for your time," Hannah said, "sooner or later, another person will come down here, informing you about when and where we want your troops. For now, begin building an army."

"We will."

"The food aid will arrive in a few days," Blaise added, "thank you."

With one final wave, they walked out of the room, smiling at each other. They were _excellent_ negotiators. Unlike most negotiations which tended to bog down over days, they had a way of concluding them within hours.

Blaise Apparated back to their hotel room in the Golden Reef Hotel and Hannah followed suit. He looked tenderly down at her. She was wearing her dress shirt and tie costume of the day before, although it had been washed.

"God, I love when you wear the shirt."

"Come get me…"

 **Thursday, January 7, 2005**

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

The rumors about the men in trench coats were flying all around the country on the day after the attempted terrorist attacks on the Manchester Shopping Mall. Some were downright ludicrous. One person said that the men were part of Albus Dumbledore's secret army that he was building at Hogwarts. A few people thought they were part of some sort of wizard Mafia.

The Minister of Magic had been informed otherwise and had privately congratulated the four intelligence officers for pulling off the defense so easily and efficiently.

Currently, Harry was looking through the final report that Sonny had prepared, including all the names of the officers involved and what each did. The report would be filed in a secret vault in the DCI Headquarters, just in case it ever was needed (any Ministry investigations, court seizures, etc.)

The report was good and Harry gave it the go-ahead. He handed it to Nicole, who would take it down to the vault. He then turned back to the assorted newspapers on the desk.

He smirked as he read some of the crazy explanations for the men in trench coats…people really could get dumb when it got down to it. Pushing the paper away, he looked at his general intelligence briefings.

Nothing new was on the horizon. Just the usual silence and murmured complaints about the authoritarian English Ministry (a lot of the Asian countries and some South American countries hated Mr. Weasley and his free-lancing style-it was very unpredictable)…well, it seemed as if Hannah and Blaise had completed the mission. They wanted to stay there over the weekend and fly back up on Monday. He gave the approval for that. They deserved it after completing the mission so quickly. Apparently, the African wizards were also good and would be useful. _Score one for Hermione_ , he thought.

His mind turned to the date at Ron's house tomorrow. He smiled. That was going to be a lot of fun. It would be the first time he could really sit down and talk to Luna (and now that she was Ron's girlfriend, he wanted to get to know her better so he would be able to advise his friend in any particular matters of the heart) and he thought that it would be interesting to see how Luna and Hermione got along.

Just one more day of this stuff…

 _The Leaky Cauldron, London, England_

"Thank you, Mr. Krum," Hermione said, shaking Viktor Krum's hand and attempting to leave the room.

"You are very pretty, you know," Viktor said.

"Sorry, I already have a boyfriend," she said quickly, hurrying out of the room. She had just had to do an interview with the number-one Seeker in the world, Viktor Krum. He was in England because his Vratsa Vultures were playing the Magpies in a series of exhibition matches. Krum had been trying to hit on her the whole interview, and she couldn't have been gladder when it was over.

She waved to the bartender, a very nice toothless man named Tom, before leaving the pub. Much as she would like to get a soda or something and talk with Tom, she didn't want to hang around too long in case Viktor left his room in the Leaky Cauldron and tried her again.

Hermione hated interviews with star Quidditch players. They were so arrogant and self-loving. Viktor wasn't as bad as some of the Magpie players she had interviewed over the years, but he was pretty conceited. _Harry isn't like that,_ she thought dreamily, _and he's the most famous wizard in the world._

Harry. The name simply brought a smile to Hermione's face. One of her coworkers at the _Prophet_ had been telling Hermione about her two year old toddler, Harry, and Hermione couldn't keep the silly grin off her face. Finally, the woman had asked Hermione if someone had put a Cheering Charm on her. She had smiled and told the woman no, but she did have a really nice new boyfriend. Which of course, elicited the entire department to gather around and fire a million questions at her. She refused to answer them, wanting to protect Harry's famous identity from them. A lot of them would be jealous and some would wonder about the 'journalistic integrity' of her article on Harry. After all, she was _dating_ the man. It would be hard for her to be totally objective.

Those green eyes…they were so deep. She felt that she could see so many things in them. Hurt, wonder, toughness, hope, and even some hints of love. There were so many emotions running around his eyes that Hermione was amazed she didn't swoon when he looked at her. She also loved his messy black hair and his boyish glasses. He probably looked sexier without them, but the glasses gave him a youthful charm that was a heavy attractant.

Well, only one more day till she went to Ron's house with Harry. She was unsure of what she was going to wear. Should she be casual or formal? Would she look good at all? Would Harry be embarrassed if she didn't look good? She shook her head. It was time to concentrate on her work. She had to get this article on Krum written up by her 7 P.M. deadline. That gave her about four hours…she hurried towards the _Prophet'_ s headquarters, intending to finish the article as quickly as possible and then go shopping.

 _Hotel Paradise, Tehran, Iran_

"Good thing that all worked out," Ben said, flipping the _Daily Prophet_ aside.

Katie nodded, "Yeah, ROBIN is probably gonna see a bump in his pay grade."

"I bet Sonny will send us the money next week. You know, it really is lucky we got this cell phone…otherwise, there's no way this operation could've been pulled off."

"Muggles deserve more credit than we give them for," Katie said.

Ben nodded, looking at the little cell phone in his hand. This little phone had probably saved _hundreds_ of lives. Good information was the only way to prevent an atrocity from happening to your country. And good information was gained from good agents. ROBIN was a good agent. He was high-up and had access to information that only a few people had. Eventually, he would probably have to defect from the organization and the DCI would provide very well for him and he'd be able to live comfortably and safely for the rest of his life in England. The defection, of course, would be necessary because sooner or later they would find out that _someone_ had been leaking information and once you knew that and what was being leaked, it was easy to find out who the traitor was.

"Do you think we'll get called back home soon?" Ben asked, lying down on the bed.

"I don't know…I kind of miss my friends and my family."

"Me too."

He looked at the stars outside, "Good night, Katie."

"Good night, Ben."

 _Swarc's Home for the Mentally Disabled, London, England_

Harry walked into the hospital where he often volunteered his time. Nobody else knew about his volunteering, not even Ron or Sonny. Whenever they asked where he was on those certain nights, he'd tell them he was meeting with Remus Lupin, his former teacher, or someone else. He didn't want to publicize his work or the people that he helped. After working here for a couple hours, he would go to another Muggle soup kitchen and help serve dinner for homeless people. It made him feel good and helped ease the ache that often came into his heart when he thought about his dead parents and godfather.

None of the people there knew that he was the most famous wizard in the world. He was just Harry. And he loved it.

"Hey," he said to receptionist, "I'm checking in to do a few hours of volunteer work."

"Just sign in here, Harry," Janet said, "most of them are in the recreation room right now."

"Thanks. Take care of yourself."

Harry headed down the hall to the recreation room. The head of the hospital, Emily Swarc, smiled at Harry and said, "Glad you could finally come back!"

"Sorry, the last few weeks have been pretty hectic," he apologized, "my work's really been overloading."

She waved it away, "Don't worry about it…I was just kidding. We're just glad you can make it at all."

"I'm glad I can help," he said.

She nodded and turned to help one of the patients with a jigsaw puzzle. Harry walked over to a sixteen year old girl named Holly. She was a pretty girl with nice blond hair, but her mental condition pretty much ensured that she would never marry.

"Hey, Holly, it's me, Harry."

She looked in his direction with smiling eyes. Holly liked Harry and always wanted him to tell her stories. Sometimes he told her stories about princesses and dragons. Sometimes he told her stories about his life, except using different names. The magic in the stories would always amaze and wonder her. She might not have been able to understand most simple things, but magic was one thing she enjoyed and liked.

"Story! Story!" she said.

Harry smiled, "Okay, let's sit down."

They sat down on the couch and he folded his legs.

"Okay, I've got a good story today," he said, speaking slowly, as he had to for her to comprehend, "it's about the wizard named Harrison."

She laughed and clapped her hands. Harrison was her favorite wizard. Harry based 'Harrison' off of himself. He told her stories of his days at Hogwarts but it was Harrison who had the adventures.

"Harrison's now the official magician of King Arthur's court," Harry started, "remember King Arthur? The nice red-headed king who rules over England?"

"Yes! Remember! Holly remembers!" she said, clapping her hands again.

Harry smiled at her, his heart silently breaking. These kids were so _torturous_ …the happiness exerted in their eyes…the smiles they had…they were so unbelievable, so profound that Harry often went home and cried after he worked here.

"Harrison performs tricks for King Arthur when other people come and visit his castle. One day, a king from Scotland comes to visit King Arthur. He has a daughter. She is a beautiful princess."

"Princess!"

Harry smiled, "The princess had long brown hair that was bushy and almost never straight. She was smart and very pretty. She was wearing a long light blue dress."

Holly nodded, entranced by the story.

"Harrison fell in love with the princess. As he performed tricks for the kings and the princess during dinner, he couldn't take his eyes off the princess. She was so beautiful. Finally, they finish dinner and Harrison bowed to them. The kings left to talk about other things. Only the princess and Harrison were left in the giant hall."

"Oooh! She like him?" Holly asked, beaming with joy.

"Shhh…wait for it. Harrison smiles nervously at the princess and says, 'How do you like Scotland?' And she replies, 'Oh, it is truly wonderful. Your tricks were wonderful too.' He said, 'Thank you, my fair lady. You are truly a beautiful woman.' The princess blushes and says, 'You are very handsome.' Harrison flicks his wand and creates a harp."

"W-w-what a harp?"

"It's this long beautiful golden instrument. It plays amazing and romantic music."

Holly nodded, not really understanding what a harp was but wanting Harry to get on with the story. Harry mentally reminded himself to bring in a picture of a harp the next time he came in.

"Music begins playing on the harp. The music is romantic and sweet. Harrison then asks the princess, 'Would you like to dance?' They dance until the song is over. They kiss and want to get married. After getting approval from both kings, they do get married. The end."

She smiled at Harry, "That good! Like story! What is princess's name?"

"Hermione. Her name is Hermione," Harry said, smiling as the image of the beautiful Hermione came into his mind.

"Her-my-uh-nee," Holly said repeatedly, rolling the tongue around the name to try and get it right.

"That's right, Holly."

"Do Hermione and Harrison live happily ever after?"

Harry thought about it, closing his eyes. After thinking about it for a few seconds, he opened them.

"Yes, they do."

 _Ministry of Magic, Beijing, China_

"This is on very short notice," the Chinese Minister of Magic noted.

"Sir, we think this is the most beneficial thing for us. The Middle East will fall behind Voldemort. England only has America and _Russia_. They're worthless. We want to be on the winning side, don't we?" his closest adviser, Chang Han San said in Chinese.

It was a midnight meeting of the minds in the Chinese wizard government. They had received a message from none other than Lord Voldemort. He wanted to come on Sunday and discuss matters 'of mutual interest.'

"He will ask for our help and we can give it to him," his senior military adviser said, "we have over ten million jobless wizards in this country. I say we put them in the army and join him when he makes his war."

They also had two million jobless witches, but the senior members of the Ministry did not believe in the equality of women. Women were just toys in their minds. All of them screwed their secretaries, most of them silently unwilling, and they really didn't have respect for them. It was a sad and harsh way of life for women in the Chinese government.

"Does everyone agree?" the Minister asked.

Nods all around the table.

"Chang, send him back a message that says yes. We will open the Apparating ward here at eleven fifty-five Sunday night. He'll have to Apparate here in a five minute window to negotiate with us. The general sentiment is that we agree with him, right?"

"Remember, don't make it obvious you're going to agree with him," the military adviser said, "let's see what he offers us."

"I know. After that, I want you to start sending out the draft letters to the jobless wizards we have here. I know that our intelligence service has all the names. Get them and draft them. I want you to secretly start training them up to be good wizards."

 **Friday, January 8, 2005**

 _DCI Headquarters, London, England_

Harry looked over the new information for the day. Hmmm…their source in China was making noise about a potential agreement with Voldemort. It looked pretty serious.

"Nicole, get Sonny and Ron in here. Also, have someone go and get Creevey and Lawson."

"Yes, sir," she called from the other side of the door.

He waited silently. He wanted to send Colin over there to work their source in the Chinese Ministry. She was a secretary for Chang Han San, the country's brutal adviser to the Minister, and got raped every week. Harry viewed it as rape, since she had unwilling sex, but there was nothing really she could do about it. Apparently, Chang Han San had come back from a late meeting and after raping her had talked vaguely about a future agreement with a 'Dark Lord.' Harry shook his head. Men were the same all around the world. You had Voldemort blabbing secrets to Luna and you had this Chang guy talking to their source. Sometimes it was too easy.

Sonny and Ron were the first to walk in and Colin soon followed.

"Okay, guys…our source in China tells us that the Ministry's going to make an agreement with Voldemort soon. She seems worried. I want to send Colin over there and run information from her. This stuff is too hot to be coming over without verification from an officer. I want him to be there so he can get it directly from her and then tell us."

Sonny and Ron both nodded and turned to Colin, "Well?"

"I'll take it," he said, "but the thing is, who's the source?"

"Nicole will tell you," he said, pointing to his secretary's office, "so, is it agreed? Okay, good. Colin, we'll book a flight for you to leave tomorrow or something."

"Yes, sir. I'll go and talk to Nicole," Colin said.

They left. Both Sonny and Ron looked at Harry, wearing worried expressions.

"Yeah, our buddy's definitely heating up the talks. It won't be long before he makes his war on us. And China's got a lot of wizards to use."

"Damn right," Sonny said, "I just talked with the Minister. After Blaise and Hannah come back on Monday, there's going to be a summit at Camp Josephine."

Camp Josephine was the get-away-from-it-all home provided for the Minister of Magic. Important summits and meetings were often held there.

"Who's going to be there?"

"Well, Arthur just appointed Tom Zabini to be the general of the war. He'll be there, Arthur and Tom van Damm will be there, all three of us, and he also wants the two officers who got South Africa and therefore, probably all of Africa, on our side-Blaise and Hannah."

"Okay," said Harry, "how many days?"

"Just next Tuesday and Wednesday."

"Ready to come over to my house?" Ron asked, as they stood up to leave.

"You bet," said Harry, "I'm looking forward to it. See you later, buddy."

"See ya."

 _Ministry of Magic, Moscow, Russia_

"Sir, the first trainees are doing well, according to General Bondarenko," the Defense Minister of Russia's Ministry of Magic, Dmitri Ivanovich Filitov, told his boss.

"As expected," Andrey Nikolayevich Narmonov replied, "I promised England good fighters and we will get them. Our Russian wizards are the best in the world. I want them to be the best-trained and the best-equipped. When the war ends, I want that bastard Dark Lord to know exactly whose wizards took him down."

"Yes, sir," Filitov said, "they are coming along most nicely. We will soon have many wizards armed and completely ready for war."

"Good. What does intelligence say about this Zabini?"

"Tom Zabini has been appointed General of the Allied Army; therefore he will be in command of all our forces. Our own generals, such as Bondarenko, will be his advisers. Zabini is a brilliant tactician and great inspirer. He will be good; a very wise choice by Minister Weasley."

"Continue to report to me as the situation is updated," Narmonov ordered.

"Yes, sir."

 _Potter Home, London, England_

Harry looked at himself one more time in the mirror, silently trying not to grimace. He didn't think he looked very good. He was wearing the dark blue sweater he had worn on the night of New Year's Eve and nice jeans but his hair was still messy and his glasses still made him look like a nerd. Shaking his head, he walked out of the room.

"That's all for tonight, Devon," Harry said, handing her a sackful of Galleons, "your month's paycheck."

"Thank you, sir."

Devon was paid as much as the average middle-class government worker even though she was just a housekeeper. Harry was well aware of the fact that she had three children and her husband was currently unemployed, having gotten fired from his weapons manufacturing plant because of budget restrictions.

He glanced one more time at the mirror, before walking out of his house. Harry walked briskly in the direction of Hermione's Muggle apartment. He was feeling only slightly less nervous than his first date with her. _Come on, Potter, you know you can do it_.

He smiled at the friendly doorman and walked up the staircase. Reaching Hermione's room, he rang the doorbell, part of his mind wondering what she was going to be wearing.

"Come in, it's unlocked," he heard her voice call out.

Harry walked in and was about to admonish her on the danger of leaving her door unlocked and open to strangers when his eyes saw her. His jaw nearly dropped to the floor.

Hermione was wearing a long black sparkly dress that showed off her curves, but not too much. It was revealing yet concealing. Upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn't _that_ sparkly, just a few sparkles here and there. Her hair was done up with a silver barrette pinning a slight bob at the top. She was stunning.

"Wow."

She smiled at him, "Come over here…can you help with this necklace?"

"Sure," he managed.

He walked closer to her, taking in a distinct, but subtle scent of vanilla. She handed him the necklace and he placed slowly around her neck, his hands dancing lightly on her bare skin.

"Mmmm…"

He closed the clasp and placed his arms around her waist, "You look amazing."

"I didn't overdo it, did I?" she asked worriedly, noting his casual blue sweater.

"It's completely fine, Hermione," he said softly, sending a shiver up her spine, "I love the way you look tonight."

She smiled and was about to tell him he was handsome too, when his lips caught against her neck, sending small nibbles across her neck. Hermione gasped and groaned as he moved across her neck, taking in the beauty of her exposed skin.

"Come on, let's go," he whispered, taking her coat off the rack.

"Okay."

Leaving the apartment, they began walking to Ron's house. It was a slightly cold night and Hermione was bundling closer and closer to Harry as they walked. Their hands were locked together and it was all Harry could do to not stop right in the middle of the street and snog her senseless.

Twenty minutes later, they were in front of Ron's two-story house, painted a violent orange to show his support for the Chudley Cannons. Harry rather thought it was ugly, but Ron would never hear of re-decorating it.

He rang the doorbell and he heard Luna's voice calling out, "I'll get it!"

Harry gave Hermione's hand a reassuring squeeze before Luna opened the door. She was dressed to kill in a short pink gown that came up to her mid-thighs. It was quite sexy and Harry was sure that Ron was having a hard time keeping himself from jumping on her (if he hadn't already).

"Hello, Luna," Harry said, "Luna, this is my new girlfriend, Hermione Granger. Hermione, this is Luna, Ron's girlfriend."

"How do you do?" she asked cordially.

"Very fine, thank you," Luna replied, "come on in."

The two twenty-four year olds followed Luna into the house, wiping the light snow on their feet off onto the mat.

"Ron, they're here!"

"Great!" Ron came bounding into the room, wearing an apron, and an oven mitt he used whenever he cooked barbecue, "Hey, Harry! And it's great to see you again, Hermione!"

Ron quickly shook hands with both of them, before saying, "Just make yourself at home in the living room. I'll be back in a few minutes-I've just got to put the steaks on the grill."

Harry and Hermione nodded and sat down, taking off their coats. Luna put them away and then sat down on the couch. The smells of corn on the cob and spinach salad floated through the living room. Harry grinned inwardly. Ron was the king of home-made cooking as far as he was concerned.

"How long have you dated Ron?" Hermione asked, looking around the room in wonder. Ron had a nicely decorated house, although Harry personally felt that too much of the house had orange in it.

"A couple weeks," Luna said, "but we knew each other before that."

"Really? What's your profession?"

Harry grimaced. If only Hermione knew. He could see that Luna was blushing.

"Um…I work for the DCI. I can't really say what I do there," Luna replied.

 _Skillfully dodged,_ Harry thought, _but almost half-true_. Hermione nodded understandingly.

"I guess I can understand," she said, laughing, "Harry has to break our dates and he can't even tell me why."

All three laughed. Ron strolled back in, grinning.

"So, how are you, Hermione? Taking care of Harry?"

"From the way it sounds, you guys are the ones taking care of all of us."

Ron smirked, "That's our job; the silent protectors. Well, dinner will be served in five minutes."

"Good, I'm starved," Harry said seriously, "speaking of which, hey Ron, do you want to go look at the steaks together?"

"Why…oh, sure," Ron said, breaking off in sudden understanding.

Harry and Ron walked outside, looking out into the starry night.

"Two good women," Harry said. "Although yours is a prostitute."

"Shut up," Ron rolled his eyes.

"I just wanted to give them a chance to get to know each other," Harry said, "you know woman-to-woman talk."

"Yeah; hopefully they're not saying bad things about us."

"Let's hope," Harry said, smiling, "but, anyway, another thing I wanted to bring you here for was to ask you how serious you were about Luna."

"Why?" Ron asked.

"I don't know. You _are_ my best friend," Harry said, "and remember, she's one of our most important sources. You know that. You can't get into a fight with her and have her reveal our many sources and tricks to Voldemort."

"I know, I know," Ron said, sighing, "I _am_ serious about her. I really care about her."

"So it's not purely physical."

"I think it might have been in the beginning, but now it's growing more and more into something else," Ron replied. "I really am beginning to care for her."

"Okay," Harry said, "because I thought about it, and realized that if you weren't serious, you should probably break it off with her."

"I know," Ron said, "but I am serious about her, so I don't plan to."

"All right," said Harry, "come on, let's get these steaks off the grill."

They took the four gigantic steaks off the grill and put them on plates with large helpings of spinach salad and a corn on the cob to go with it. They walked back to the living room, carrying the steaming plates.

The women were laughing about something or the other, but stopped when they saw the plates come in.

"Dinner is ready," Ron announced.

They all helped themselves to a plate and began to eat ravenously.

"This is great," Hermione said, wiping her mouth as she finished he spinach salad.

"Thank you," Ron said, "I pride myself on my cooking."

"It's lovely, dear," Luna said, kissing Ron on the cheek. Ron blushed and both Harry and Hermione snorted and giggled into their plates. They got a glare from both their dinner companions.

Full to bursting, Harry lay aside his plate, his throat still processing the last bits of steak. Ron was also finished, but the ladies were still finishing their steaks off.

"Great meal, Ron."

Ron nodded and added, noticing that both Hermione and Luna were done, "What do you want to do now?"

"Dance?" asked Luna.

Harry began shaking his head immediately, "No way. I don't dance. No way."

Hermione laughed, "Come on, Harry, dance with me."

Harry shook his head stubbornly. Ron apparently agreed with Luna and had put a slow song on his Muggle record player. Harry didn't recognize it but he also caught the look in Ron and Luna's eyes they danced to the song. It was obviously their special song. Harry wondered when they had first played that song together. Hermione was still tugging on his hand, but Harry refused to get up.

"Okay, since we're the only ones who danced to that song," Ron said, "you both have to dance to this one."

With a final tug, Hermione pulled him off the couch and onto the floor.

"Please," she whispered in a soft, begging voice.

Harry knew immediately he couldn't say no. Damn women and their conniving voices. Ron put another record in, smiling. This was a good song for them, he thought to himself.

Harry put his arms around Hermione's waist and she placed her own around his neck. Her head leaned against his and the side of his face had soft brown hair pushing into it. He breathed silently, taking in her beauty. The song began to play and they began to slowly dance.

 _find me here  
and speak to me  
I want to feel you  
I need to hear you  
you are the light  
that's leading me  
to the place  
where I find peace again_

 _you are the strength  
that keeps me walking  
you are the hope  
that keeps me trusting  
you are the life  
to my soul  
you are my purpose  
you're everything_

 _and how can I  
stand here with you  
and not be moved by you  
would you tell me  
how could it be  
any better than this yeah_

 _you calm the storms  
and you give me rest  
you hold me in your hands  
you won't let me fall  
you still my heart  
and you take my breath away  
would you take me in  
take me deeper now_

 _and how can I  
stand here with you  
and not be moved by you  
would you tell me  
how could it be  
any better than this_

 _and how can I  
stand here with you  
and not be moved by you  
would you tell me  
how could it be  
any better than this_

 _cause you're all I want  
you're all I need  
you're everything  
everything_

 _you're all I want  
you're all I need  
you're everything  
everything_

 _you're all I want  
you're all I need  
you're everything  
everything_

 _you're all I want  
you're all I need  
you're everything  
everything_

 _and how can I  
stand here with you  
and not be moved by you  
would you tell me  
how could it be  
any better than this_

 _and how can I  
stand here with you  
and not be moved by you  
would you tell me  
how could it be  
any better than this  
would you tell me  
how could it be  
any better than this_

The song ended and their arms were still wrapped around one another. Harry did not want to let go. Neither, it seemed, did Hermione. They stood there for a long time, just holding each other, until Ron gave a huge, fake cough.

"Like the song?" he asked.

They both nodded silently, still refusing to let go. It was Luna and Ron's turn to start laughing and giggling. Harry's ears heard them, but his eyes were on Hermione. He ran a hand across her done-up hair and found her silver barrette.

"God, you're beautiful," he murmured.

"Harry…"

Ron coughed again, "You realize that there _are_ other people in the room."

"Listen, Ron, I think Hermione and I want to leave."

"So late?" Ron asked sarcastically, "Not to worry, I expected it…and Luna and I could use a little privacy of our own. Here's your coats."

Ron Summoned them over to his hands and handed it to them. They walked out to the door, Harry's hands never leaving Hermione's.

"Now be a good little boy and a good little girl; don't do anything I would do," Ron said, wagging his finger at them.

"Shove off, Ron," Harry said, taking Hermione and walking off quickly.

Ron laughed, "Boy, he's got it bad."

He walked back into the living room where Luna had already started removing her clothes and was now only in a pink bra and panties. Ron grinned and began removing his clothes too.

 _Anderson's Apartment, London, England_

Harry took off his jacket and lay on the bed, still clothed in his sweater and jeans. Hermione was lying next to him and he was running his hand through her soft hair.

"We left so abruptly," Hermione murmured.

"It doesn't matter. Ron understands…"

"Yeah," Hermione said, "wow…that was such a beautiful song."

Harry nodded and nervously trailed one of his hands down her neck. She closed her eyes and acquiesced.

"Hermione," he whispered breathily.

"Yes, Harry?"

"Can I touch you?"

"Yes."

Harry slowly lifted her gown off her ankles and off the top of her head. All she had left on was a black bra and panties. He almost choked when he saw them. She was so beautiful…

"Take off your sweater," she whispered.

He took off his blue sweater, tossing it aside and taking his shirt off as well. She put her hands on his muscular chest, rubbing it slowly. He closed his eyes and after a few minutes of allowing this, he opened his eyes and took his own action.

Looking into her eyes for consent which he found, Harry reached out one of his hands and ran his hand across her bra, coming into contact with her skin every few inches.

It was the most electrifying thing Hermione had ever felt. She felt herself turn hot and cold with every touch Harry gave her. He stopped and began kissing her, his mouth working furiously against hers.

She kissed back with equal passion. Never had she surrendered like this. She had never lain in bed with another man, clad only in a bra and panties. Never had she kissed someone like that. But here she was, Hermione Granger, reporter for the _Daily Prophet_ , completely submitting herself to a man whom she had known for just over two weeks.

Harry's jeans pressed against her black panties. Their noses rubbed against each other as their faces switched from side to side, their lips mixing and matching.

"Oh, Hermione," he whispered, his hand finding her barrette and dropping it to the floor. He noticed that her hair still looked nice, although a little more disheveled.

"I love the way your hair's done up," he added.

"Thanks," she said, "I hoped you would like it."

As his hands began moving against her bra again, Harry suddenly realized how close he was to losing control. This seemed to knock sense back into him and his hands stopped moving.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"I think we should stop," Harry said, biting back the pain of making that statement, "before we go too fast."

"You're right," she said, nodding.

Harry smiled weakly at her, "You're a great kisser."

"Thanks…Harry, can you stay here?"

"Of course."

Harry sank back into the bed, putting an arm across her bare stomach. He rubbed her hair one more time, before letting her face away from him and sleep. Harry looked at her body, glinting in the dim light of the room. Her black bra and panties clung to her body and Harry had never seen a more delectable sight in his life. Forcing this thought out of his mind, he slowly closed his eyes, his mind humming the words that had defined the evening for him.

 _and how can I  
stand here with you  
and not be moved by you  
would you tell me  
how could it be  
any better than this_

 _cause you're all I want  
you're all I need  
you're everything  
everything_

A/N: so this song was initially an amazing H/Hr video that I couldn't find anymore (granted it was made like 11 years ago) but I found a similarish one that you guys can enjoy: _www. youtube watch?v=de5OC_02KpM (c/p into your browser and remove the spaces_


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